Commodity trader Glencore Plc (OTC:GLNCY) looks to plead guilty to multiple counts of bribery and market manipulation and pay penalties of up to $1.5 billion following U.S., U.K., and Brazilian investigations, the Financial Times reports.
Glencore agreed to pay about $1.5 billion in overall penalties, including the $1.1 billion to U.S. authorities, $40 million to Brazilian prosecutors, and an undisclosed amount due to the U.K.
The U.K. Serious Fraud Office charged the group’s subsidiary Glencore Energy U.K. with seven profit-driven bribery and corruption cases related to oil operations in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and South Sudan.
Glencore agents and employees allegedly paid bribes worth over $25 million for preferential access to oil.
In the U.S., Glencore pleaded guilty to a decade-long bribery scheme and an eight-year scheme to manipulate U.S. fuel oil price benchmarks.
In 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice launched a wide-ranging investigation, followed by the SFO in 2019.
Glencore faced €10.5 million bribery charges to induce officials of companies Société Nationale des Hydrocarbures and the Société Nationale de Raffinage.
Glencore faced bribery charges of €4.7 million between July 2011 and April 2016 to influence officials to favor the company in oil transactions in the Ivory Coast, failing to prevent individuals connected to the company from bribing officials concerned with awarding crude oil cargoes in Equatorial Guinea.
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