CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Glencore staff bribery charges delayed until later this yearBloomberg News | April 18, 2023
Glencore headquarters in Baar, Switzerland. Stock image.
The UK’s fraud prosecutor is to delay a long-awaited decision whether to charge as many as 11 ex-Glencore Plc employees involved in the widespread corruption perpetrated at the company.
The Serious Fraud Office intended to make individual charging decisions on executives by the end of April, but it has now pushed the date back until later this year, according to people familiar with the matter.
The commodity trading industry has been dogged by anti-corruption investigations for years, but few individual traders or bosses have faced prosecution. The SFO previously said the investigation into the individual Glencore employees makes allegations of serious criminality, but it did not confirm whether all 11 employees implicated were under investigation.
“Our bribery investigation into individuals connected to Glencore remains ongoing,” an SFO spokesperson said.
Glencore was hit with a £276 million ($343 million) fine in November by a London judge after pleading guilty to coordinating a sprawling effort to bribe government officials for access to oil cargoes across Africa.
Prosecutors focused in on the firm’s London trading desk, saying Glencore’s traders and executives paid more than $28 million in bribes to secure access to oil cargoes between 2011 and 2016.
A Glencore spokesperson declined to comment.
The SFO is in the middle of a shake up at the top of its leadership after director Lisa Osofsky announced she would step down from the role in August. A recruitment process for her successor is currently underway.
(By Katharine Gemmell and Jonathan Browning)
Glencore headquarters in Baar, Switzerland. Stock image.
The UK’s fraud prosecutor is to delay a long-awaited decision whether to charge as many as 11 ex-Glencore Plc employees involved in the widespread corruption perpetrated at the company.
The Serious Fraud Office intended to make individual charging decisions on executives by the end of April, but it has now pushed the date back until later this year, according to people familiar with the matter.
The commodity trading industry has been dogged by anti-corruption investigations for years, but few individual traders or bosses have faced prosecution. The SFO previously said the investigation into the individual Glencore employees makes allegations of serious criminality, but it did not confirm whether all 11 employees implicated were under investigation.
“Our bribery investigation into individuals connected to Glencore remains ongoing,” an SFO spokesperson said.
Glencore was hit with a £276 million ($343 million) fine in November by a London judge after pleading guilty to coordinating a sprawling effort to bribe government officials for access to oil cargoes across Africa.
Prosecutors focused in on the firm’s London trading desk, saying Glencore’s traders and executives paid more than $28 million in bribes to secure access to oil cargoes between 2011 and 2016.
A Glencore spokesperson declined to comment.
The SFO is in the middle of a shake up at the top of its leadership after director Lisa Osofsky announced she would step down from the role in August. A recruitment process for her successor is currently underway.
(By Katharine Gemmell and Jonathan Browning)
Reuters | April 18, 2023 |
(Image Image of Newlands Coal Complex, courtesy of Glencore)
Global miner Glencore faces increased pressure to clarify how it will manage its climate change commitments after investors holding more than $500 billion in assets backed a shareholder resolution to be voted on next month.
Nine institutional investors, including Man Group, Scottish Widows and Brunel Pension Partnership, added their weight to calls for more transparency from one of the world’s biggest producers of thermal coal, according to a joint statement from the Australian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR).
Major asset managers representing $2.2 trillion in assets late last year asked Glencore to explain how its production and capital expenditure plans aligned with the Paris goals on tackling climate change as part of a shareholder resolution.
Those concerns were not adequately addressed in Glencore’s March climate report, according to the statement. At the 2022 AGM, nearly a quarter of shareholders rejected Glencore’s climate plan.
Glencore is one of the world’s largest producers and traders of thermal coal used in power generation. Record prices of the commodity helped to add some $10 billion to its earnings in the six months to June.
Shipra Gupta, Investments Stewardship Lead at Scottish Widows, said the asset owner would support the latest shareholder resolution at the annual general meeting (AGM) on May 26 in Zug, Switzerland.
Shareholders unhappy with board decisions can rally to vote against remuneration and director appointments amongst other measures.
The demands for more accountability follow Glencore’s proposal to spin off its coal business as part of its $22.5 billion attempted takeover of Canada’s Teck Resources which raises the issue of future responsibility over coal emissions should the deal goal through.
Former Glencore CEO Ivan Glasenberg said in 2020 the company would run down its coal mines and would not replace them.
“I don’t see how spinning off coal mines will help us reduce Scope 3 emissions,” he said, referring to the emissions generated when the fuel sold by a company is burnt.
(By Melanie Burton; Editing by Barbara Lewis)
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