Alex Beard, the billionaire former head of oil at Glencore Plc, was charged with corruption by the UK’s high fraud company, alongside 4 different ex-employees from the commodities dealer.
Beard, 56, who was one in all Glencore’s high executives for greater than a decade earlier than his departure in 2019, is the very best profile particular person to be charged in a sweeping collection of investigations into corruption and market manipulation on the firm – and one of the crucial senior commodity merchants ever to be charged with wrongdoing.
The UK’s Severe Fraud Workplace accused Beard of conspiring to make corrupt funds to learn Glencore’s oil operations in West Africa. The company alleges he conspired to make the funds to authorities officers and workers of state owned oil corporations in Nigeria between 2010 and 2014, and Cameroon between 2007 and 2014.
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Additionally going through prison prosecution is Andy Gibson, 64, Glencore’s ex-head of oil operations and for years Beard’s second in command. The SFO charged him with 4 conspiracies of constructing corrupt funds in Nigeria and Cameroon between 2007 and 2014, and Ivory Coast between 2007 and 2010. He was additionally alleged to have conspired to falsify invoices between 2007 and 2011.
Moreover, Paul Hopkirk, Ramon Labiaga and Martin Wakefield, former Glencore workers concerned in buying and selling West African oil, stand accused of conspiring to make corrupt funds to authorities officers and workers at state owned oil corporations in Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Cameroon.
Wakefield is individually charged with one conspiracy to falsify paperwork between 2007 and 2011.
All the boys are scheduled to seem at Westminster Magistrates Courtroom in London on Sept. 10. Attorneys for Beard and Gibson declined to remark. Attorneys for the opposite males didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
“Right this moment’s motion is a crucial step towards exposing abroad corruption and holding those that are accountable to account,” Nick Ephgrave, director of the Severe Fraud Workplace, stated Thursday.
Glencore in 2022 pleaded responsible to corruption and market manipulation instances within the US and UK, admitting that it had paid bribes to win enterprise in eight international locations from Brazil to South Sudan and paying about $1.5 billion to resolve the investigations towards it.
“Glencore cooperated with the SFO in its investigation into this previous conduct and resolved its SFO investigation in 2022,” a Glencore spokesperson stated noting the costs. “We’re dedicated to appearing ethically and responsibly throughout all facets of our enterprise and have taken important motion in direction of constructing a best-in-class Ethics and Compliance Programme.”
Till his departure from Glencore in 2019, Beard was a part of the interior circle of former chief government Ivan Glasenberg as one in all a dozen division heads who made up Glencore’s administration board. After working at BP Plc, he joined in 1995, changing into head of oil in 2007 and was identified for his acumen buying and selling Russian oil. When the corporate listed in London in 2011 he was revealed to be one in all its largest shareholders with a stake price $2.8 billion.
After leaving Glencore he began an funding firm, Adaptogen Capital, to put money into large-scale batteries related to the UK grid. He has been a serious donor to Christ Church school at Oxford College and a trustee of Shakespeare’s Globe theatre in London. His web price was estimated at £1.2 billion within the newest Sunday Instances Wealthy Listing.
Beard’s position at Adaptogen Capital ended on July 12, in response to a submitting at Firms Home.
“Alex Beard is now not a director of the corporate having resigned in July 2024,” a spokesperson for Adaptogen stated on Thursday. “It stays enterprise as standard at Adaptogen.”
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