Fuel tanks in Malawi
Glencore Energy, a United Kingdom firm, has been ordered to pay about K800 million to Malawi for bribing government officials in a 2012 oil deal between Malawi and Nigeria.
On 3 November, 2022, Southwark Crown Court’s Justice Fraser ordered Glencore Energy UK Ltd to pay £182.9m million after investigations revealed that the company paid US$29 million in bribes in several African countries to gain preferential access to oil in Africa.
Glencore pleaded guilty in June this year to seven counts of bribery, after a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation exposed that it had paid bribes to maximise its oil trading profits in five African countries.
For the Malawi case, the court fined the company £978,205 (over K1 billion) but the fine was reduced to £652,137 (close to K800 million) because the company pleaded guilty.
The Malawi case happened in 2012 when a company called Petroleos de Geneve S.A. Limited (“PDG”), allegedly operated by two brothers of Malawi’s consul General to Nigeria at the time, was contracted by the Government of Malawi to administer a government-to-government crude oil term contract between Nigeria and Malawi in 2012.
Glencore entered into a two year contract with PDG by which PDG granted Glencore all the barrels of crude oil allocated by NNPC to PDG at the Nigerian official selling price, with no premium or discount applied.
“Glencore undertook to sell the oil and pass 60% of the profits to PDG within 45 days of lifting. A portion of these profits were to be paid on to the Government of Malawi. Principal payments to NNPC for crude oil cargoes were not required until 90 days after the oil had been lifted, rather than the standard 30 days that was most common for NNPC contracts.
“Bribes were paid to NNPC officials to ensure that PDG received frequent oil allocations, which meant that Glencore could profit from frequent crude oil allocations to it, so that it could benefit from the far longer period of credit available under those contracts,” reads part of the court judgement.
Prosecutors from UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said Glencore paid US$335,920 in bribes and made a gross profit US$460,387 or GBP297,487.
“Glencore traders and executives sanctioned bribes to officials at the Nigerian state oil company in order to take “take advantage of the ‘free credit’ benefit inherent in the joint venture agreement,” the SFO said.
Glencore, founded in 1974, is one of the largest multinational commodity trading and mining companies in the world.
Its subsidiaries operate in more than 35 countries, but Glencore’s London office primarily dealt in oil, with one of its crude oil divisions responsible for West Africa.
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