Federal prosecutors in Switzerland said on Monday they have found the international unit of a commodities trade company, Glencore “criminally liable” and ordered the firm to pay over $150 million in fines and compensation after ending investigation of bribery in connection with Congo’s mining industry, an incident that took place over a decade ago.
The Swiss Attorney General’s office said Glencore International AG failed to take adequate measures to prevent bribery of a Congolese public official by a business partner over its purchase in 2011 of minority stakes in two companies from the central African country’s state mining company.
Glencore did not admit to the findings but said it would not appeal.
The Switzerland-based company said the attorney general’s office did not find that any company employees knew of the bribery by the business partner, nor did Glencore “benefit financially” from the partner’s conduct.
Glencore International was handed a fine of 2 million Swiss francs (about $2.4 million) and ordered to pay a “compensation claim” of $150 million in connection with the estimated benefit to the partner.
Glencore and other international commodities companies regularly face scrutiny and criticism from non-governmental groups and authorities over the tactics they use to win contracts and business in developing countries with large amounts of oil, diamonds, minerals and other high-value natural resources.
Glencore already reached a deal in 2022 with Congo’s government to pay $180 million over bribery allegations spanning from 2007 to 2018.
Chairman Kalidas Madhavpeddi said Glencore has “invested heavily” to improve its ethics and compliance program and noted that two independent compliance monitors, who have a three-year term under a mandate in a resolution with the U.S.
Justice Department, began their work in the middle of last year.
Back in Nigeria, Heritage Times HT recalls how in 2021 report emerged that a former United Kingdom-based trader for Glencore Plc, Anthony Stimler, bribed officials of the West African country’s state-owned oil firm, in exchange for favourable contracts from the defunct Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
Stimler, acting through subsidiaries of Glencore allegedly conspired with others to make millions of US dollars in corrupt bribe payments to officials in Nigeria.
The former trader pleaded guilty over what prosecutors in the United States described as his role in a scheme to bribe and he admitted to conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and commit money laundering at a hearing in Manhattan federal court conducted by video.
Prosecutors said millions of dollars in bribes were paid to officials in Nigeria, in exchange for NNPC awarding oil contracts and providing “more lucrative grades of oil on more favorable delivery terms”.
In Cameroon, some managers and employees of state-owned oil company will appear before a court in the United Kingdom over their alleged involvement in bribery offences linked to Glencore, the National Hydrocarbons Corporation (SNH) has vowed.
SNH’s administrator, Adolphe Moudiki and the Director General, had previously denied involvement of the firm’s staff in the suspected graft.
They however made a u-turn last week and issued a statement saying some employees had been identified as suspects and would appear before a British court on September 10.
“SNH welcomes the progress of proceedings against the perpetrators and accomplices of the acts of corruption that have tarnished its image,” Moudiki said in the statement.
