Glencore’s bribery of Nigerian officials – A timeline of events

Glencore, an Anglo-Swiss multinational commodity trading company is one of the oil traders that has been engaging in shady deals with Nigerian officials under contracts for decades.

The following dates reveal dubious deals Glencore has engaged with Nigeria and other African nations with rich natural resources.

November 2 2022

On Wednesday, prosecutors at a London court said a staff of the British unit of commodity trader Glencore conveyed cash using private jets to pay bribes to officials in Nigeria and other African countries, to secure lucrative oil deals.

October 26 2022

A London court denied Nigeria a bid to claim compensation from Glencore over bribes paid to the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited officials.

Lawyers representing the country told London’s Southwark Crown Court that Nigerian officials should be permitted to address the court on November 2 and 3, when Glencore Energy is to be sentenced having pleaded guilty to seven counts of bribery in connection with oil operations in five African countries including Nigeria.

But Judge Peter Fraser, the presiding judge ruled that Nigeria does not have the right to be heard, as only the prosecution, in this case, the UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO), and the defence can make arguments at a sentencing hearing, Reuters reported.

Read also: Aramco, Petrobras beat profit expectation in Q3 as NNPC struggles with old woes

June 8 2022

The United States fined Swiss-based oil trader Glencore the sum of $1.2 billion as a penalty for bribes paid to corrupt officials in Nigeria and other countries, in a move that rewards a country that suffered no damage from the company’s crime.

2017

US prosecutors from the Justice Department’s kleptocracy team filed a case in Houston to seize nearly $145 million worth of assets — including an $80 million, 215-foot yacht called the Galactica Star, a $50 million Billionaire’s Row apartment in New York and homes in California — that it said were purchased for the benefit of Nigeria’s oil minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, with embezzled funds.

2013-2014

According to US prosecutors, over the course of 2013 and 2014, Glencore bought 15 cargoes totalling seven million barrels from the men, paying more than $800 million.

Of that, they contended, roughly a third-$272 million was diverted into an account at a Nigerian bank used for the purchases for Diezani Alison-Madueke, Nigeria’s former petroleum minister.

September 2014

Anthony Stimler, a former Glencore trader was notified in September 2014 that “Foreign Official 1” was asking all NNPC clients to pay an advance on each cargo in connection with a then-upcoming political election in 2015, according to U.S court filings.

He then had Glencore wire $300,000 to an intermediary company, which prosecutors said was used “to pay bribes to Nigerian government officials.”

2007 – 2018

According to investigations by Brazil, the United Kingdom and the United States, Glencore’s corrupt actions included more than $100 million in bribes to officials in Brazil, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, South Sudan, and Venezuela between 2007 and 2018.

U. S. prosecutors outlined how Stimler and others paid bribes worth millions of dollars in several countries, including NNPC officials, between 2007 and 2018.