Odebrecht Wins $537 mln Contract in Panama

Brazilian engineering company Odebrecht SA, which has been charged with corruption, was part of a consortium that won a project worth half a billion dollars to rebuild a Panamanian coastal city.

Odebrecht said in a statement on Friday that the successful bid shows the confidence Panamanian authorities have in the family-run company.

Brazilian police arrested Odebrecht chief executive Marcelo Odebrecht and other senior executives last week on charges the company spearheaded a $2.1 billion bribery scheme at state-run oil firm Petrobras.

Prosecutors accuse engineering executives of forming a cartel to fix prices and inflate the value of service contracts with Petrobras to enrich themselves and politicians, nearly all from or aligned with President Dilma Rousseff's Workers' Party.

The scandal has blocked the construction firms, including Odebrecht, from doing business with Petrobras, leading to massive layoffs and a drop in investment that has hurt an already weak economy.

Odebrecht Infraestrutura América Latina formed a consortium with Panamanian construction firm Constructora Urbana S.A. to bid for the project to build 5,000 new homes in Colon, the company said. 

(Reporting by Alonso Soto; Editing by Grant McCool)