Brazil's Petrobras pays $700 mln to Vantage Drilling after court decision (updated)

Vantage Drilling

22/06/2019 24:26

(Adds case details, context)
    SAO PAULO, June 21 (Reuters) - Brazilian state-controlled
oil company Petróleo Brasileiro SA  PETR4.SA  said on Friday it
had made a $700 million payment to oil services provider Vantage
Drilling Company  VTGDF.PK  in a case involving a contract that
it had terminated.
    Petrobras, as the oil company is known, said in a securities
filing that it decided to make the payment following a decision
by a U.S. court in Texas denying its request to cancel the
result of an earlier arbitration in Holland opened by Vantage
after Petrobras terminated a drilling contract in 2015. 
    Petrobras argued at the time that the contract had been
awarded to the U.S. company "by way of corruption," according to
findings by Brazil's Operation Car Wash anti-corruption
investigation.
    Vantage denied the accusation and said the contract was
"wrongfully terminated. It won the arbitration in Holland, but
Petrobras appealed the ruling in the Texas court.
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N1VK0JSPetrobras had also appealed the court decision to
uphold the arbitration ruling.
    Petrobras said on Friday it decided to pay the amount to end
interests in the condemnation and to free up some assets that
had been frozen by the Dutch arbitration as a way to force it to
comply with the ruling.
    Petrobras said the payment does not mean an end to the
litigation, as it continues to defend its position.
    

 (Reporting by Marcelo Teixeira
Editing by Leslie Adler)
 ((marcelo.teixeira@tr.com; +55 11 5644 7707; Reuters Messaging:
marcelo.teixeira.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net - https://twitter.com/tx_marcelo))