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10 - Kickbacks, Crackdown, and Backlash

Legal Accountability in the Lava Jato Investigation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2022

By
Luciano Da Ros  and
Matthew M. Taylor
Edited by
Sandra Botero ,
Daniel M. Brinks  and
Ezequiel A. Gonzalez-Ocantos
Sandra Botero
Affiliation:
Universidad del Rosario, Colombia
Daniel M. Brinks
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
Ezequiel A. Gonzalez-Ocantos
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
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Summary

The Lava Jato (or “Car Wash”) corruption investigation offers an important case study of the evolution of legal accountability in consolidating democracies. This chapter evaluates the origins of the investigation and the early successes of prosecutors, analyzes why Lava Jato initially succeeded where numerous previous cases had floundered, discusses the causes and likely consequences of the investigation’s declining effectiveness and ultimate neutering, and reflects on what this experience suggests about legal accountability in Brazil and other democracies facing long-festering patterns of elite collusion, corruption and impunity.

Keywords

Operation Car WashLava JatoCorruptionProsecutionLegal accountabilityPoliticsBrazil
Type
Chapter
Information
The Limits of Judicialization
From Progress to Backlash in Latin America
 , pp. 242 - 265
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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