Glencore to pay £281m over bribery in Africa

GLENCORE was yesterday penalised to the tune of £281m after pleading guilty to a string of bribery offences across several African states.

A judge at Southwark Crown Court handed the commodities giant a penalty of around £183m – reduced from £274m after it admitted its guilt – plus a £93.5m confiscation order to take back the proceeds of the corruption.

Glencore will also pay £4.6m to cover the Serious Fraud Office’s (SFO) investigation costs.

The multi-million pound fine is the largest ever imposed on a company in a UK court.

The SFO brought charges against Glencore following a long- running investigation which revealed its London-based oil trading desk paid bribes of over £24m for preferential access to shipments in Nigeria, Cameroon, the Ivory Coast, equatorial Guinea and South Sudan.

In a sentencing hearing, Mr Justice Fraser said the facts of the case demonstrated ‘not only significant criminality but sophisticated devices to disguise it’. he added the corruption was ‘endemic’ among Glencore’s traders on the desk. Lisa Osofsky, director of the SFO, said the judgment was ‘a landmark case’ for the UK as it was the first time a company had been convicted for authorising bribery under British law.

A Glencore subsidiary pleaded guilty in June to the charges, which included incidents where cash was flown by private jet to bribe officials.

A month before, Glencore agreed a £957m settlement with the US Department of Justice concerning the scandal.

Chairman Kalidas Madhavpeddi said: ‘ The conduct that took place was inexcusable and has no place in Glencore.’

he added that Glencore is ‘committed to operating transparently under a well-defined set of values, with openness and integrity at the forefront’ and it has taken ‘significant action towards implementing a world-class ethics and compliance programme’.