A British subsidiary of the Glencore mining group has pleaded guilty to corruption offenses in a British court for the second time in the last two months.
He was accused of paying millions of dollars in bribes to secure access to crude oil in several African countries.
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) found that bribes occurred from 2012 to 2016.
It emerged that over US$28 million (£22.8 million) in bribes were paid through the Swiss-based company’s employees and agents.
The bribery allegations said that the company’s aim was for officers to “fail to properly perform their duties or reward them for doing so by giving undue preference to Glencore Energy UK Limited in the allocation of crude oil shipments, the dates of the crude oil and the grades of crude oil allocated”. .
The mining giant has also pleaded guilty to corruption charges in the US and Brazil.
Glencore faces fines of up to $1.5bn (£1.2bn) but is currently making record profits.
Profits for the first half of the year are expected to exceed $3 billion (£2.4 billion) from sales of metals, minerals and agricultural products.
A British subsidiary of the firm pleaded guilty to seven counts of bribery related to oil operations in Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Ivory Coast and South Sudan in Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday.
The SFO said Glencore was trying to gain access to the oil and making illicit profits from its oil deals in the five countries.
He is also threatened with investigations in Switzerland and the Netherlands.
Last month the US firm agreed to a $1.1 billion (£900m) settlement over a scheme to bribe officials in seven countries over the course of a decade.
It covered the mining giant’s activities in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Venezuela.
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With Glencore most recently pleading guilty to seven counts of bribery, the SFO said in May it had uncovered “profit-making bribery and corruption” at Glencore Energy UK’s oil operations in five African countries.
At the time, Glencore’s chairman said that “unacceptable practices” had taken place in connection with the bribery allegations to which it pleaded guilty in Westminster Magistrates’ Court.
The company’s agents and employees paid more than $25 million worth of bribes for preferential access to oil between 2011 and 2016, with the company’s approval, the SFO said.
Spotlight on Corruption, an advocacy group, said the charges are “hugely significant” but raise “questions about the SFO’s ambitions as our elite corruption agency.”
The NGO’s legal expert, Helen Taylor, explained that although Glencore is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is headquartered in Jersey, the SFO “only followed” the British subsidiary’s oil operations in a handful of African countries.
“This is weak fruit given the staggering level of corruption that has been uncovered in the company’s global operations,” she continued.
“Until now, corporate corruption has gotten off lightly as liability has been largely limited to bribery offenses that have not been prevented.
“Today’s guilty plea from Glencore should send a strong signal that companies are held accountable for executive complicity in corporate corruption.
“The reality is that bribery will remain in the shadows until courageous whistleblowers, investigative journalists and civil society bring corporate crime into the spotlight of public scrutiny,” added Ms. Taylor.
Glencore is due to be convicted in a two-day hearing at Southwark Crown Court in November.
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