Glencore has been ordered by a federal judge in New York to pay $700m (about R12.69bn) for a global bribery scheme orchestrated by the Swiss-based commodities trading and mining giant.
Judge Lorna Schofield imposed the sentence on Tuesday after a plea deal with prosecutors when Glencore pleaded guilty in May to conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The company must pay a fine of $428.5m (R7.77bn) and $272.2m (R4.94bn) in criminal forfeiture.
The penalty, one of the largest in a foreign corruption case, is part of the $1.5bn (R27.2bn) Glencore agreed to pay to resolve bribery and market-manipulation probes in the US, UK and Brazil. Glencore units agreed to plead guilty to a list of charges ranging, from bribery and corruption in South America and Africa to price manipulation in US fuel-oil markets.
Glencore was guilty of “a very serious offence”, Schofield said, though noting the company’s efforts to co-operate with the government and to beef up compliance procedures after receiving a federal grand jury subpoena in 2018.
Prosecutors said Glencore paid more than $100m (R1.81bn) in bribes to government officials in Brazil, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Venezuela. They said the company made $315m (R5.71bn) from the scheme.
In addition to the fine and forfeiture, Glencore will spend five years on probation, continue with improvements to its ethics and compliance programmes and employ an outside monitor for three years.
Glencore conducted an internal investigation, eventually disciplining more than 20 people, a lawyer for the company said during the hearing on Tuesday in the Manhattan federal court. Glencore produced more than 1-million documents, many from outside the US, and hired a forensic accounting firm to look into suspect trading activity.
On Monday, Schofield ruled Glencore must pay $29.6m (R536.8m) to the founders of a company that provided healthcare services in 11 African countries, but was forced to shut down. Crusader Health said it was driven out of business after Glencore bribed a public official in the DRC to throw out a lawsuit brought by Crusader against a Glencore subsidiary.
In September, the commodity firm was sentenced in Connecticut to pay $486m (R8.81bn) in fines and forfeitures in a case in which it admitted to conspiring to manipulate oil-price benchmarks. In November, a London judge imposed a £276m (R6.04bn) penalty for Glencore’s effort to bribe government officials for access to oil cargoes across Africa.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.