In 2022, Glencore (a commodities company incorporated in the United Kingdom and headquartered in Switzerland) resolved a net $443 million Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action regarding conduct in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Brazil, Venezuela, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.” (See here for the prior post).
In summary fashion, the DOJ alleged:
“From at least in or about 2007 up to and including in or about 2018, Glencore, through certain of its employees and agents, while acting on behalf of Glencore, together with its co-conspirators, knowingly and willfully conspired and agreed with others to corruptly provide more than $100 million in payments and other things of value to various intermediaries with the intent that a significant portion of these payments would be used to pay bribes to and for the benefit of foreign officials to secure an improper advantage and to influence those foreign officials in order to obtain or retain business in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Brazil, Venezuela, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.”
The company also resolved a United Kingdom Serious Fraud Office (SFO) enforcement action regarding conduct in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea and South Sudan. (See here for the prior post).
In summary fashion, the SFO alleged:
“Glencore Energy (UK) Ltd has … been convicted on all charges of bribery brought against it by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). At Southwark Crown Court, the company admitted to multiple counts of paying bribes to secure access to oil and generate illicit profit. The SFO’s investigation exposed that Glencore, via its employees and agents, paid bribes of over $28 million for preferential access to oil, including increased cargoes, valuable grades of oil and preferable dates of delivery. These actions were approved by the company across its oil operations in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea and South Sudan.”
Recently, the SFO announced that it has criminally charged former Glencore employees “Alex Beard, Andrew Gibson, Paul Hopkirk, Ramon Labiaga and Martin Wakefield with conspiring to make corrupt payments in order to benefit commodities giant Glencore’s oil operations in West Africa.” As stated in the release:
“The five individuals, all former employees of the company, have been charged in connection with the awarding of a range of oil contracts variously spanning Cameroon, Nigeria and the Ivory Coast from 2007 to 2014.
Andrew Gibson and Martin Wakefield have also been charged in relation to the falsification of invoices to Glencore’s London office marked as service fees to a Nigerian oil consultancy from 2007 to 2011.”
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