Tax officials probe MinRes and founder Ellison, AFR reports
Australian tax officials have started a new investigation into Mineral Resources Ltd. and its founder and managing director, Chris Ellison, the Australian Financial Review reported Thursday.
The investigation by the Australian Taxation Office is focused on how MinRes and Ellison calculated income and fringe benefits taxes, the newspaper said citing an ATO request sent to the Federal Court. It follows earlier, separate, inquiries by both the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the Australian Securities Exchange.
A spokesperson for MinRes did not immediately respond to a phone call or emails. The ATO did not respond to questions before publication.
Ellison has been under scrutiny for roughly a year since an internal company probe found he had engaged in “profoundly disappointing” conduct including not paying personal income tax. He was fined A$8.8 million ($5.8 million) by the company and forfeited his salary and other incentives worth as much as A$9.6 million. Ellison also made a commitment to step down from the top job by the middle of next year.
The company’s own inquiry also found MinRes had made payments of A$3.8 million to an offshore company owned by Ellison for mining equipment and parts. He agreed to repay the amount. It also revealed the Perth-headquartered firm had paid rent on properties owned by Ellison and other rent-related financial benefits to his daughter. On occasion, he used company resources and staff for work on his private boat and properties, and to manage his finances.
Under Ellison the company grew from a mining contractor to operating its own mines. MinRes recently brought its massive Onslow iron ore project online, and struck a new joint venture agreement with South Korea’s Posco Holdings Inc. to reduce debt.
(By Paul-Alain Hunt)
Four Glencore Traders Plead Not Guilty to Bribery Charges
Four former employees of trader Glencore have pleaded not guilty to charges of bribery in connection with the firm's oil operations in Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Cameroon in 2007-14.
Paul Hopkirk, 51; Martin Wakefield, 66; David Perez, 54; and Ramon Labiaga, 56, have been arraigned at a UK court and have pleaded not guilty to charges of "conspiracy to give corrupt payments" to local officials and intermediaries. Gibson, Perez and Wakefield face an additional charge of falsifying accounting documents for allegedly writing up fake cash-payment invoices for an intermediary, Nigeria's Amazoil Ltd. Two additional top trading executives, former oil trading chief Alexander Beard and oil operations director Andrew Gibson, have also been charged but have yet to enter pleas; both maintain that they are innocent.
The case will take time to make its way through the court system, and the trial is set to begin in October 2027.
Corruption allegations have plagued all of the major commodity trading houses in recent years, and Glencore is no exception. In 2022, the company pleaded guilty to American charges of international bribery and market manipulation, and it paid a combined $1.1 billion in penalties and fines.
According to the U.S. Justice Department, Glencore International and its subsidiaries bribed intermediaries and foreign officials in West African countries for more than a decade, securing favorable oil contracts in return. In Nigeria alone, prosecutors said, Glencore and its subsidiaries paid more than $52 million to local intermediaries, in the expectation that those funds would be used to pay bribes to Nigerian officials. The scheme netted the trading house hundreds of millions of dollars in profits, Justice officials said.
"At bottom, Glencore paid bribes to make money – hundreds of millions of dollars. And it did so with the approval, and even encouragement, of its top executives," said then-U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York at the time.
In addition, the company admitted that its American traders were in the practice of submitting fake bids to the Platts trading window in order to drive benchmark fuel oil prices up or down, depending on whether they were buying or selling. This technique was used in order to manipulate fuel oil prices at two American seaports. As a penalty for this scheme, Glencore agreed to pay a criminal fine of $340 million, forfeiture of $144 million, and hire an independent monitor for three years. It also settled a related case brought by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for a civil penalty of $865 million and disgorgement of another $320 million.
If the firm's admitted bribery offenses had been discovered later, it could have avoided prosecution in the United States. The Trump administration halted all enforcement action on Foreign and Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) cases in February 2025. In an executive order, the White House said that pursuing corruption cases like the one against Switzerland-based Glencore "actively harms American economic competitiveness and, therefore, national security."
No comments:
Post a Comment