For years, the world’s largest oil trading firm has maintained that it has “zero tolerance” for corruption. Now Vitol Inc. has admitted that it was paying bribes through a network of shell companies and sham contracts. As recently as July 2020, while publicly repeating those assurances, Vitol was bribing government officials in Ecuador and Mexico. In Brazil, a Vitol executive delivered cash to traders at Petroleo Brasileiro SA in exchange for the “gold number” — the price at which Vitol should bid to win tenders from the Brazilian state oil company. The revelations, from a deferred prosecution agreement between Vitol Group’s U.S. unit and the Department of Justice, are part of Brazil‘s so-called Carwash bribery scandal, that’s described by the Petrobras chief as “an MBA in corruption.” They are a […]