The title compound C12H8Br2N2O, lies on an inversion centre in the space group P21/n. Doubts are cast on the report of a polymorph of this structure in the non-centrosymmetric space group P21 [Zhu, R.-T., Liu, J.-C., Jin, S., Liu, B. & Guo J.-P. (2006). Hecheng Huaxue (Chin. J. Synth. Chem.) 14, 591] as ADDSYM alerts point strongly to a centrosymmetric structure. In the crystal, C—H...O and C—H...Br hydrogen bonds together with offset π–π interactions stack the molecules along the a-axis direction.
