Details have emerged of how a former United Kingdom-based trader for Glencore Plc, Anthony Stimler, bribed officials in Nigeria in exchange for favourable contracts from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.
Court documents obtained exclusively by PREMIUM TIMES show that Mr Stimler, acting through subsidiaries of Glencore, conspired with others to make millions of U.S. dollars in corrupt bribe payments to officials in Nigeria.
The former trader pleaded guilty over what prosecutors in the United States described as his role in a scheme to bribe.
A Bloomberg report said that Mr Stimler admitted to conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and commit money laundering at a hearing in Manhattan federal court conducted by video.
Prosecutors said millions of dollars in bribes were paid to officials in Nigeria, in exchange for NNPC awarding oil contracts and providing “more lucrative grades of oil on more favorable delivery terms.”
Bribery Scheme
Prosecutors alleged that in Nigeria, in exchange for the bribes, officials caused the Nigerian state-owned and state-controlled oil company (NNPC) to award oil contracts and to provide more lucrative grades of oil on more favorable delivery terms to Glencore, two wholly-owned subsidiaries of the company, and their business partners.
Aside conspiring with others to make millions of U.S. dollars in corrupt bribe payments to officials in Nigeria and elsewhere, prosecutors added that Mr Stimler conspired to obtain and retain business for and to direct business to Glencore and its subsidiaries.
Details showed that in furtherance of, and to promote the corrupt bribery scheme, Mr Stimler and others conspired to transmit the bribe payments from Switzerland to and through the United States, and from the United States to other countries, particularly Nigeria.
Prosecutors alleged that the manner and means by which Mr Stimler and his co-conspirators sought to accomplish the purpose of the conspiracy included, among others, using and paying inflated and fraudulent invoices submitted to the company and its subsidiaries by intermediaries to disguise the nature and purpose of bribe payments made to government officials, which payments were made in order to obtain and retain business and to obtain business advantages for Glencore and its subsidiaries.
