The billionaire former head of oil at Glencore Plc, Alex Beard, has been charged with corruption by the UK’s top fraud agency, alongside four other ex-employees from the commodities trader.
Beard, 56, who was one of Glencore’s top executives for more than a decade before his departure in 2019, is the highest profile individual to be charged in a sweeping series of investigations into corruption and market manipulation at the company – and one of the most senior commodity traders ever to be charged with wrongdoing.
The UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) accused Beard of conspiring to make corrupt payments to benefit Glencore’s oil operations in Nigeria and other West African Countries.
Specifically, the agency alleges that he conspired to make the payments to government officials and employees of state owned oil firms in Nigeria between 2010 and 2014, and Cameroon between 2007 and 2014.
But in May, the federal government said Glencore, a British mining and trading group, was expected to pay Nigeria a $50 million penalty for bribery.
Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, made the disclosure in Abuja during the ministerial sectoral update for the present administration.
He said the resolution was reached after the federal government entered a settlement agreement with the firm.
In Nigeria alone, the department said Glencore and its subsidiaries paid more than $52 million to the intermediaries, intending that those funds be used, at least in part, to pay bribes to Nigerian officials.
In the same month, Glencore agreed to pay about $1.5 billion in total to resolve investigations in the US, United Kingdom and Brazil — of which $1.06 billion was payable to agencies in the US and Brazil.
On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that also facing criminal prosecution was Andy Gibson, 64, Glencore’s ex-head of oil operations and for years Beard’s second in command.
The SFO charged him with four conspiracies of making corrupt payments in Nigeria and Cameroon between 2007 and 2014, and Ivory Coast between 2007 and 2010. He was also alleged to have conspired to falsify invoices between 2007 and 2011.
Additionally, Paul Hopkirk, Ramon Labiaga and Martin Wakefield, former Glencore employees involved in trading West African oil, stood accused of conspiring to make corrupt payments to government officials and employees at state owned oil companies in Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Cameroon.
Wakefield was separately charged with one conspiracy to falsify documents between 2007 and 2011.
All the men are scheduled to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court in London on September 10. Peter Binning, a lawyer for Beard, declined to comment. Lawyers for the other four men didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
“Today’s action is an important step toward exposing overseas corruption and holding those who are responsible to account,” Nick Ephgrave, Director of the Serious Fraud Office, said on Thursday .
Glencore in 2022 pleaded guilty to corruption and market manipulation cases in the US and UK, admitting that it had paid bribes to win business in eight countries from Brazil to South Sudan and paying about $1.5 billion to resolve the investigations against it.
“Glencore cooperated with the SFO in its investigation into this past conduct and resolved its SFO investigation in 2022,” a Glencore spokesperson said, noting the charges.
Until his departure from Glencore in 2019, Beard was part of the inner circle of former chief executive Ivan Glasenberg as one of a dozen department heads who made up Glencore’s management board.
After working at BP Plc, he joined in 1995, becoming head of oil in 2007 and was known for his acumen trading Russian oil. When the company listed in London in 2011 he was revealed to be one of its largest shareholders with a stake worth $2.8 billion.
After leaving Glencore he started an investment company, Adaptogen Capital, to invest in large-scale batteries connected to the UK grid. He has been a major donor to Christ Church college at Oxford University and a trustee of Shakespeare’s Globe theatre in London. His net worth was estimated at £1.2 billion in the latest Sunday Times Rich List.
Beard’s role at Adaptogen Capital ended on July 12, according to a filing at Companies House. The firm said it had no comment on the situation at the time.
Emmanuel Addeh
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