A subsidiary of Swiss-based mining giant Glencore, pleaded guilty to seven counts of bribery in a London court Tuesday. The firm will pay up to $1.5 bln after other subsidiaries pleaded guilty to bribe in Brazil and the US. The United States department of Justice said on May 24 the natural resource firm had entered a plea agreement to foreign bribery and market manipulation schemes.
Speaking to the media, U.S. Attorney General, Merrick Garland, gave more details on the settlement: “Glencore has agreed to pay approximately $700 million in penalties for its decade long scheme to bribe foreign officials in seven different countries. The second plea involves Glencore’s U.S. commodities trading arm, Glencore Limited, which engaged in a scheme to manipulate fuel oil prices at two of the busiest commercial shipping ports in the United States over the course of eight years. Glencore has agreed to pay approximately $485 million in penalties. This represents the Justice Department’s largest criminal enforcement action to date for a commodity price manipulation conspiracy in oil markets.“
According to the British Serious Fraud Office (SFO), company agents and employees paid bribes worth over $25m for preferential access to oil in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and South Sudan. All, with Glencore’s approval between 2011 and 2016.
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, presented some of the findings of the American probe: “Glencore paid over $100 million in bribes to government officials in Brazil, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Venezuela. The bribery scheme here spanned the globe. Glencore paid bribes to secure oil contracts. Glencore paid bribes to avoid government audits. Glencore paid bribes to judges to make lawsuits…
#africatourism #africatravel