A British subsidiary of trading giant Glencore has been ordered to pay more than £280m ($315m) for running a bribery network in Africa to secure crude oil contracts.
A London judge said Glencore Energy UK Ltd was guilty of corporate corruption on a “widespread scale” with bribes taken from the multinational’s head office in Switzerland disguised as office expenses.
Cash was taken by private jets by employees and agents to pay off African officials in five countries to secure preferential access to oil, better grades of oil and preferable loading dates.
