Glencore fined £582m by US court for bribing African and South American officials
Glencore has been fined $700m (£582m) over the corruption scandal that saw the company’s execs pay more than $100m in bribes to officials in Africa and South America.
A New York court has ordered Glencore to pay a $428.5m fine and forfeit a further $272m, after the commodities giant agreed a plea deal last May.
The May plea deal saw Glencore agree to pay $700m to US authorities after it admitted paying more than $100m in bribes to officials in Brazil, Venezuela, and five African countries, from 2007 to 2018.
The New York court’s order comes after Glencore agreed to pay a total $1.5bn to settle charges brought forward by US, UK, and Brazilian authorities over the far-reaching corruption scandal.
In dealing with the UK charges, Glencore was ordered by a London court last November to pay £281m, to settle seven charges brought against it by Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO).
The SFO charges specifically related to activities carried out by execs on Glencore’s West Africa trading desk that saw $29m in bribes paid to officials across seven African countries.
The Swiss firm separately agreed to pay more than $1bn to US authorities for bribing officials and manipulating oil markets, after also pledging to pay Brazilian authorities $40m.
Glencore still faces a raft of civil lawsuit brought forward against it by its own investors and the governments of African countries in which it paid bribes, over the far-reaching corruption scandal.
In October, a coalition of Glencore’s institutional investors sued the firm in London’s High Court, over losses related to the corruption probes.
In December the commodities giant also agreed to pay $180m to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to settle all legal cases arising from any activities in the country relating to the bribery scheme.
The commodities firm is still being investigated by Swiss and Dutch authorities in relation to the corruption scandal.