UK Fines Glencore $314-M For Bribing African Oil Execs

Commodities giant Glencore has been ordered to pay a record £281 million ($314 million) penalty by a UK court for bribing officials across Africa to gain access to oil, Anna Cooban reported for CNN Business.

Photo Insert: The SFO investigation found that Glencore had funneled about $29 million worth of bribes between 2011 and 2016 through its workers and agents across its oil operations in Nigeria, Cameroon, the Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, and South Sudan.

The UK government’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), which brought the case against Glencore Energy UK, said on Thursday that the penalty was the biggest ever handed out for a corporate criminal conviction in the country.

In June, the commodities trader admitted to seven counts of bribery at a court in London.

The penalty announced on Thursday includes a fine, legal costs, and confiscation of the profit Glencore made from its bribes.

“The conduct that took place was inexcusable and has no place in Glencore,” company Chairman Kalidas Madhavpeddi said in a statement on Thursday, adding that the firm had taken “significant action” to build a new ethics and compliance program.

The SFO investigation found that Glencore had funneled about $29 million worth of bribes between 2011 and 2016 through its workers and agents across its oil operations in Nigeria, Cameroon, the Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, and South Sudan.

The money was used to secure preferential access to bigger cargoes and more valuable grades of oil as well as preferred delivery dates, the SFO said earlier his year.

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