Johannesburg – Swiss-based commodities trading and mining giant, Glencore Plc, the company that admitted to bribery, price manipulation, and corruption in Africa and elsewhere, has been fined $700 million by a U.S.A. court.
MINING NEWS DIGEST (Mining.com) is reporting that the fine was imposed months after Glencore entered a plea deal in which it agreed to plead guilty to a list of charges ranging from bribery and corruption in South America and Africa to price manipulation in US fuel-oil markets.
On Tuesday a federal judge in New York ordered Glencore to pay $700 million as a criminal punishment for a global bribery scheme it orchestrated, reports MINING NEWS DIGEST.
US District Judge Lorna G. Schofield imposed the sentence, following the terms of a plea deal with prosecutors entered when Glencore pleaded guilty in May last year to a single count of conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
In addition to being penalised with one of the largest fines for such conduct – the same court approved a settlement between Glencore PLC and prosecutors, ordering it to pay nearly $30 million in restitution to the South African founders of a healthcare company that sought to provide medical services to miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Bribery was an embedded part of Glencores approach to maximising profits in some countries including Brazil, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Congo, South Sudan, and Venezuela between 2007 and 2018. More than $100m worth of bribes was paid to officials in those countries by Glencore.
Last year in November the UK Serious Fraud Office revealed how Glencore paid more than $US28 million ($44.5 million) in bribes across five African countries over five years to 2016.
A judge handed down a penalty of £276 million ($489 million) for Glencores conduct, on top of about $US1.1 billion the company has already paid in related cases in the US and Brazil.
Now Glencore must pay another fine of $428.5 million and $272.2 million in criminal forfeiture as ordered by the U.S.A. court on Tuesday.
