JBS chairman Joesley Batista and chief executive Wesley Batista resigned from senior posts “in a corruption scandal that threatens to topple Brazil’s president Michel Temer,” said Reuters. The brothers, who own the world’s largest meat producer, which has operations in the United States, admitted to paying $150 million, mostly in bribes, to nearly 2,000 politicians in Brazil, including its past three presidents, said the Wall Street Journal.
“The meteoric rise of the Batistas’ JBS SA, the global meat powerhouse that seemed to come out of nowhere a decade ago, wouldn’t have been possible without a top politician on the take, hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes and a series of sweetheart deals with Brazil’s state development bank,” said Bloomberg. “In addition to handing over documents allegedly implicating more than 1,800 politicians in the scheme, the beef magnates also provided prosecutors with an audio recording in which President Michel Temer appears to be endorsing Joesley Batista’s payment of hush money to a jailed former lawmaker.”
At a board meeting, Joesley Batista resigned as chairman and was replaced by board member Tarek Farahat. Wesley Batista resigned as vice chairman of the board, to be replaced by his father, José Batista Sobrinho, but kept his position as chief executive and remained on the JBS board, said Reuters. “The Batistas have already agreed to a plea bargain with prosecutors. However, the family holding company, J&F Investimentos SA, the controlling shareholder of JBS, remains locked in negotiations over a potential leniency deal for the company itself.”
In the United States, JBS owns brands such as Pilgrim’s Pride and supplies meat to chains that include McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, KFC and Wendy’s, said the Journal.
Bloomberg said the revelations by the brothers “raise questions about unfair competition abroad as the company gobbled up more than 40 rivals on four continents between 2007 and 2017.”