Talk:Odebrecht–Car Wash leniency agreement

Denunciation or plea bargain?

There's a question in my mind about the central topic of this article; since Delação can have several meanings (betrayal, whistle blowing, informing; less often: tip off, snitch, denounce) and the expression derived from it (Portuguese: Delação premiada, lit. 'rewarded informing', akin to a plea bargain or leniency agreement. If this is about the long list of accusations against Odebrecht employees and not a plea bargain, then it needs to be renamed, and the text altered. It's mainly paragraph 3, about Dallagnol's comment about "the biggest payback" involving the millions of dollars recovered, that makes me think it was a plea bargain. Mathglot (talk) 02:04, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

The Portuguese original (acordo de leniência) as well as the penalty agreed to, makes it clear it's a leniency agreement. There is some fuzzy language both in the original Portuguese, and even more so in English, since plea bargains and leniency agreements have a lot in common; also, some of the quotations by public figures confuse the two. This requires a change in the name of this article to Odebrecht–Car Wash leniency agreement. Mathglot (talk) 06:25, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

I understand the issue, but am not sure how to resolve it. In french "denoncer" is not so much "to denounce" as "to accuse". So if a cooperating witness makes a deposition that implicates others -- I think that is what we have here -- what should we call it? I have been using testimony, which has fewer emotional overtones, but it is a tough call in terms of whether to translate or use the untranslated term. Elinruby (talk) 06:54, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

inquests

changing this to "investigations". Inquest is a related term but usually means an investigation into the causes of someone's death. Elinruby (talk) 06:47, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Speaking of translation, "80% of which would go to Brasil" is one of those uses of the conditional tense, isn't it, where it implies that this is what was said but might not be what did or will happen? Since this use does not exist in English can we change this to "did" if we can verify that, or say that the agreement called for 80% of the fine to go to Brasil? Elinruby (talk) 06:58, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

also "withdraw the secrecy of the depositions" --> does the phrasing imply that there was a gag or secrecy order that was cancelled? Is that why we don't just say "make public"? Elinruby (talk) 07:00, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

@Elinruby:, 1) wrt investigations, I agree.

For #2, yeah, we should verify if it actually happened, and change tense.

For #3, the source for this is here. The withdraw the secrecy term does sound a bit awkward; that comes from retirada dos sigilos, or retire o sigilo, and other inflected forms. I get the feeling it's like any non-public communication, such as what happens within a judge's chambers, say, or in the case of a document, not being released publicly. If we were talking about a government document with an actual "secret" designation, I might use the word declassify, but I don't think this is like that; it's more that certain procedures and documents routinely go on in private, but I could be wrong.. So, I guess made public, or released to the public or some such could work.

There still might be a distinction, though: some building permit from ten years ago might be buried in some file somewhere, but not "secret"; it's just that no one is spending the effort to go look for it and print it. You could still say "made public" for that permit if some dogged reporter found it and published it, but that wouldn't be because it was "secret" before, it was just one of a zillion documents nobody bothers to publish, because there's no interest in it. The issue with these depositions feels different: a dogged reporter *couldn't* just dig them up no matter how hard they tried; that's why Attorney General Janot petitioned the judge to retirar do sigilo. So, how would we express that difference? I'm not sure if made public is strong enough, because it sounds too much like some buried building permit that was discovered. Is declassify too cloak-and-dagger? Pinging users @Rrts and Shari Garland: who may be able to help. Mathglot (talk) 23:24, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Adding @Jorge Stolfi, VersedFenrir, and Scheridon:. Mathglot (talk) 23:31, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree re “made public” — as I recall I read it as something akin to lifting a gag order. Elinruby (talk) 01:08, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

I still am not sure how to translate it however Elinruby (talk) 01:09, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

@Mathglot: unseal? Elinruby (talk) 06:43, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Unseal is an interesting idea, but that would only work, imho, if it was "sealed" to begin with (as opposed to being something that by its nature is private information, so never "sealed" in the first place). My understanding of sealed is something that would have been public by default, but at a judge or other authority's discretion, was sealed in order to keep it from public view. Mathglot (talk) 06:54, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

In my humble opinion, "declassify" is the most appropriate word for the context... if you look at the definition from the ODE, that seems to be the correct direction:

declassify /di:ˈklasɪfʌɪ/

verb (declassifies, declassifying, declassified) [with object]

- Officially declare (information or documents) to be no longer secret: government documents were declassified.

- Reassign to a lower classification: she called for vigorous research before any moves are made to declassify the drug in Ireland. VF (talk) 00:42, 21 July 2022 (UTC)