The UK’s Serious Fraud Office has charged Glencore’s billionaire former head of oil trading with conspiring to make corrupt payments to benefit the commodities company’s oil operations in West Africa.
Alex Beard, who ran Glencore’s oil division from 2007 until his retirement in 2019, will face charges alongside former Glencore executives Andrew Gibson, Paul Hopkirk, Ramon Labiaga and Martin Wakefield after a long-running investigation into allegations of bribery at the company.
Beard, who became a billionaire when Glencore listed in London in 2011, is the highest profile individual charged after the SFO’s sweeping investigation into Glencore which began in 2019 under the codename Operation Azoth.
The SFO said the executives have been charged in connection with the awarding of oil contracts spanning Cameroon, Nigeria and Ivory Coast from 2007 to 2014. They are expected to appear at Westminster magistrates court on 10 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.”
Glencore pleaded guilty in 2022 to corruption and market manipulation cases in the US and UK, after admitting that it had paid bribes to win business in eight countries including Brazil and South Sudan.
The company set aside up to $1.5bn to settle two investigations against it in the US. The first case involved what prosecutors described as a decade-long bribery scheme, and in the second Glencore pleaded guilty to using an eight-year scheme to manipulate US fuel oil price benchmarks.
It was also ordered to pay more than £280m in the UK after an SFO investigation revealed it paid $29m in bribes to gain preferential access to oil in Africa in what a crown court judge called “highly corrosive” and “endemic” corruption.
Beard will face two charges of conspiracy to make corrupt payments to government officials and officials of state-owned oil companies in Nigeria between 2010 and 2014, and Cameroon between 2007 and 2014.
He stepped down in July from his role as chair of Adaptogen Capital, the investment company he set up after leaving Glencore to invest in large-scale batteries connected to the UK grid.
His second in command at Glencore, Gibson, will face four charges of conspiracy to make corrupt payments to government officials and officials of state-owned oil companies in Nigeria and Cameroon between 2007 and 2014, and Ivory Coast between 2007 and 2010. Gibson also faces one charge of conspiracy to falsify documents between 2007 and 2011.
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Hopkirk, Labiaga and Wakefield, who were involved in trading West African oil, also stand accused of conspiring to make corrupt payments to government officials and employees at state-owned oil companies in Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Cameroon.
A Glencore spokesperson said the company noted the charges and had “co-operated with the SFO in its investigation into this past conduct and resolved its SFO investigation in 2022”.
“This (alleged) conduct has no place in Glencore and we are committed to acting ethically and responsibly across all aspects of our business and have taken significant action towards building a best in class ethics and compliance programme,” the spokesperson said.
