Brazil’s economic quagmire, with an ever-growing corruption scandal on top of the longest and deepest recession in at least a century, is producing an unprecedented era of corporate debt restructuring in the country, Bloomberg News reported. The borrowing binge Brazilian companies went on during the country’s economic boom earlier this decade has now turned into an albatross as tens of thousands of protesters take to the streets and lawmakers move toward impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff.

Latin America’s largest independent oil producer, Pacific Exploration & Production Corp., is evaluating six buyout offers to avoid bankruptcy, according to people familiar with the negotiations, The Wall Street Journal reported. The final offers, which include a management buyout and up to $500 million in loans, are due Wednesday, with the board expected to make a decision by the end of the week, the four people said.

A Brazilian judge on Tuesday sentenced Marcelo Odebrecht, the former chief executive officer of South America’s biggest construction company, to 19 years in prison for his involvement in a sprawling corruption scandal centered on Brazil’s state oil company, Petrobras, The Wall Street Journal reported. The scion of a billionaire family, 47-year-old Mr. Odebrecht was convicted of money laundering, corruption and organized crime. He was CEO of Odebrecht SA when he was arrested and jailed last June. He later resigned from the company founded by his grandfather.

Brazil’s economy suffered its biggest contraction in 2½ decades last year as the country’s recession stretched through the fourth quarter with little sign of abating, The Wall Street Journal reported. Gross domestic product shrank 3.8% in 2015, Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, or IBGE, said Thursday. That was the biggest drop since 1990, when the economy contracted 4.3%. But in contrast to that downturn, which was preceded and followed by at least modest expansions, few economists predict a recovery soon for Latin America’s biggest economy.

Argentina’s deal to put a bitter 15-year creditor saga behind it won’t come cheap, Bloomberg News reported. On Sunday, the country agreed to terms with bondholders led by hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer over unpaid debts from its record $95 billion default in 2001. The settlement, which will let Argentina regain access to overseas bond markets, is the biggest, and arguably the most significant, in a string of creditor accords struck by President Mauricio Macri since he took office Dec. 10. The tab for all these deals?

Argentina is poised to return to international capital markets after a 15-year ban as it finally reached an agreement with a group of creditors led by Paul Singer’s Elliott Management, the Financial Times reported. The deal, which has to be approved by Argentine lawmakers, is to pay $4.653bn to settle all claims with four “holdouts” that had refused to restructure debt after the country’s 2001 default.

Brazil’s real weakened after inflation surprisingly accelerated and as Goldman Sachs said the currency is poised to drop another 11 percent this year while the government struggles to contain consumer-price increases and shore up its budget, Bloomberg News reported.

Brazil’s real weakened after inflation surprisingly accelerated and as Goldman Sachs said the currency is poised to drop another 11 percent this year while the government struggles to contain consumer-price increases and shore up its budget, Bloomberg News reported.

Sete Brasil Participações SA plans to file for bankruptcy protection if state-controlled oil producer Petróleo Brasileiro SA, the rig builder's sole client, fails to present a final lease contract proposal in a week's time, three sources with direct knowledge of the matter said on Friday, Reuters reported. Both Sete Brasil and Petrobras declined to comment.

After winning a victory in its decade-long battle with a group of US hedge funds in a New York court, attention now switches to Argentina’s congress. Judge Thomas Griesa said on Friday that he would lift a controversial financial blockade preventing Argentina’s access to the international capital markets, the Financial Times reported.