A British subsidiary of mining and trading giant Glencore on Tuesday formally pleaded guilty to seven counts of bribery in connection with oil operations in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and South Sudan.
At a Southwark Crown Court hearing in London, Glencore Energy admitted to paying more than $28 million in bribes to secure preferential access to oil and generate illicit profit between 2011 and 2016. The company will be sentenced on November 2 and 3, the UK Serious Fraud Office said.
The company still faces Swiss and Dutch investigations. But after sweeping changes that culminated in the exit of CEO and top shareholder Ivan Glasenberg in 2021, the November sentencing will wrap up a multinational inquiry that has weighed on the business for more than four years. US authorities will account for the bulk of penalties after Glencore agreed to a $1.1 billion US settlement last month to resolve a decade-long scheme to bribe foreign officials across seven countries — and separate charges alleging a trading division manipulated fuel oil prices at US shipping ports.