Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Glencore has been ordered by Swiss authorities to pay about $152mn as a fine and compensation, resolving a four-year investigation in relation to the alleged bribery of a Congolese public official by a business partner in 2011.
The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland closed its criminal investigation against the UK-listed natural resources group after ordering it to pay a fine of SFr2mn ($2.4mn) and a $150mn compensation claim in respect to the estimated financial benefit accrued by the business partner.
The resolution of the case brings to an end the last of the remaining publicly known investigations into historical claims of corruption and misconduct related to Glencore, which have dogged the commodity trader’s investment case for years. A parallel Dutch case was also dismissed on Monday.
The bribery in question took place in 2011 when one of Glencore’s business partners allegedly paid fees to a Congolese public official to acquire minority stakes in two mining companies from the central African country’s state-owned mining entity for less than their value.
The Swiss authorities said in a statement that Glencore was criminally liable “for failing to take all necessary reasonable and organisational measures to prevent the bribery of a Congolese public official by its business partner”.
However, Glencore said that the summary penalty order stated that the Swiss authorities did not identify that any of its employees had any knowledge of the bribery, nor did the company benefit financially from the business partner’s conduct.
Glencore did not admit the findings of the Swiss authorities but to draw a line under matters, it agreed not to appeal the penalty order.
“Glencore is pleased to have resolved these investigations relating to past matters that occurred over 13 years ago,” said chair Kalidas Madhavpeddi.
“This resolves the last of the previously disclosed government investigations into historical misconduct.”
Glencore is one of the world’s largest commodities traders, transporting millions of tonnes of metals, minerals and oil across the globe annually. The Swiss-based group is the largest western mining group to operate in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa’s largest copper producer and the source of more than half of the world’s cobalt.
The company’s operations in the country have faced scrutiny because of its relationship with Dan Gertler, an Israeli businessman, who was placed on a US sanctions list in 2017.
Glencore has always maintained that it did not secure its entry into the DRC’s mining sector through deals with Gertler, but rather ended up in business alongside him when they independently acquired interests in some of the country’s mines. Glencore subsequently bought Gertler out of those projects.
The resolution of the Swiss and Dutch investigations comes as a series of bribery and corruption cases against Glencore and its private commodity trading rivals such as Gunvor and Trafigura have been resolved.
Both Gunvor and Trafigura pleaded guilty to separate charges by US prosecutors related to bribery earlier this year. Gunvor agreed to pay $660mn and Trafigura $127mn in fines and forfeited profits.
Glencore pleaded guilty in 2022 to multiple counts of bribery and market manipulation after probes by US, UK and Brazilian authorities and agreed to pay penalties totalling $1.5bn.
Last week, the UK Serious Fraud Office charged Glencore’s billionaire ex-head of oil Alex Beard and four other former executives with conspiring to make corrupt payments to secure lucrative oil contracts.