In May 2022, Glencore (a commodities company incorporated in the United Kingdom and headquartered in Switzerland) resolved a net $443 million Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement action regarding conduct in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Brazil, Venezuela, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.” (See here for the prior post).
In summary fashion, the DOJ alleged:
“From at least in or about 2007 up to and including in or about 2018, Glencore, through certain of its employees and agents, while acting on behalf of Glencore, together with its co-conspirators, knowingly and willfully conspired and agreed with others to corruptly provide more than $100 million in payments and other things of value to various intermediaries with the intent that a significant portion of these payments would be used to pay bribes to and for the benefit of foreign officials to secure an improper advantage and to influence those foreign officials in order to obtain or retain business in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Brazil, Venezuela, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.”
As a condition of settlement, Glencore agreed to retain a compliance monitor for a three year period.
As stated by the DOJ:
“because certain of the defendant’s compliance enhancements are new and have not been fully implemented or tested to demonstrate that they would prevent and detect similar misconduct in the future, the imposition of a Monitor is necessary to reduce the risk of recurrence of misconduct;”
Recently, Judge Lorna Schofield (S.D.N.Y.) granted a DOJ request to terminate the monitor early.
As stated by the DOJ:
“The Government has assessed the facts and circumstances of the case and determined to exercise the Government’s sole discretion under the Plea Agreement to terminate the monitorship early.”
