UK anti-graft agency charges former Glencore oil traders named in oil scandal involving NNPC

Five former Glencore oil traders were on Thursday charged in the United Kingdom (UK) in connection with a bribery case in Nigeria and other West African countries.

The UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in a statement on Thursday, said Alex Beard, Andrew Gibson, Paul Hopkirk, Ramon Labiaga and Martin Wakefield were charged with conspiring to make “corrupt payments” in order to benefit commodities giant Glencore’s oil operations in West Africa.

The SFO said the five individuals have been charged in connection with the awarding of a range of oil contracts spanning Cameroon, Nigeria and the Ivory Coast from 2007 to 2014.

Andrew Gibson and Martin Wakefield have also been charged about the falsification of invoices to Glencore’s London office marked as service fees to a Nigerian oil consultancy from 2007 to 2011.

The individuals will appear before Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 10th September.

Nick Ephgrave, the director of the SFO, said: “Bribery damages financial markets and causes lasting harm to communities. Today’s action is an important step towards exposing overseas corruption and holding those who are responsible to account.”

Background

In July 2021, a PREMIUM TIMES’ report detailed how a former United Kingdom-based trader for Glencore Plc, Anthony Stimler, bribed officials in Nigeria in exchange for favourable contracts from the defunct Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, (NNPC).

NNPC towers, CBD Abuja

Mr Stimler, acting through subsidiaries of Glencore, conspired with others to make millions of U.S. dollars in corrupt bribe payments to officials in Nigeria. The former trader pleaded guilty over what prosecutors in the United States described as his role in a scheme to bribe and he admitted to conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and commit money laundering at a hearing in Manhattan federal court conducted by video.

Prosecutors said millions of dollars in bribes were paid to officials in Nigeria, in exchange for NNPC awarding oil contracts and providing “more lucrative grades of oil on more favorable delivery terms.”

On 24 May 2022, following prolonged investigations by Brazil, the United Kingdom, and the United States, two Glencore subsidiaries pleaded guilty to multiple charges of market manipulation and bribery, including corruption related to the company’s oil operations in Africa and South America.

Glencore’s penalties to the U.S. alone for violating the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and manipulating commodity prices will total approximately $1.2 billion.

At the time, according to the investigating countries, 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.

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However, Glencore provisioned $1.5 billion to settle expenses pertaining to the charges. In May 2022, it decided to pay $1.1 billion to US authorities for contravening bribery laws and commodity price manipulation.

In November 2022, Glencore was asked by a London court to pay £281 million in fines, confiscated profit and as a sanction for its part in seven bribery offences pertaining to its oil business in Africa.