Glencore (an Anglo–Swiss mining company with headquarters in Switzerland and ADRs traded on a U.S. exchange) has been under Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (and related scrutiny) since mid-2018. Earlier this year, Glencore disclosed that it expects to resolve U.S., U.K., and Brazilian investigations in 2022 and that it reserved $1.5 billion “representing the Company’s current best estimate of the costs to resolve these investigations.” (See here for the prior post).
No doubt among the factors relevant to the resolution of these matters will be Glencore’s remedial measures and compliance enhancements.
Relevant to this issue, earlier this week Glencore released its first ever Ethics and Compliance Report which provides “a detailed overview of Glencore’s Ethics and Compliance Programme, including a summary of our approach, compliance structure, and the various systems and processes that we implement to support our programme and promote an ethical culture.”
As stated by Glencore:
“The report addresses areas of interest to both external and internal stakeholders, particularly given the challenges Glencore has faced as a Group over the last few years arising from our ongoing investigations. Glencore has invested significant resources starting before the investigations commenced to build and implement a best-in-class programme and has made significant investments in compliance personnel, systems and external assurance. We believe that a strong Ethics and Compliance Programme grounded in our Values is critical to ensuring we are a responsible and ethical company, and a trusted business partner. We want to be transparent about the challenges we face, how we learn from them and how we use them as an opportunity to improve and push ourselves to do better.”
Chairman Kalidas Madhavpeddi stated:
“The Board and the executive leadership team are committed to leading a company that delivers value for our employees and stakeholders by operating transparently under a well-defined set of Values, with openness and integrity at the forefront. It is important for all our stakeholders to have a detailed explanation of the work that we do to achieve these aims.”
CEO Gary Nagle stated:
“The changes we have made to our Ethics and Compliance Programme, and the corresponding focus on making the importance of ethics and compliance more visible across the business, have substantially reinforced our overall compliance tone, culture, and commitment.”
I encourage compliance professionals to check out Glencore’s Ethics and Compliance Report for the simple reason that it is document published by a company under intense FCPA (and related) scrutiny who no doubt recognizes that the information in the Report will be relevant to the pending resolutions.
In the process of reviewing the 74 page document, you will also encounter several micro-details such as how many compliance professionals the company has, how many languages the Code of Conduct was translated into, how many compliance posters were put in Canadian offices compared to Australian offices, how many Kazakhstan employees were invited to an online event with the CEO, and how many third parties the company actively monitors.
