Business

Glencore, a Swiss-based commodities company, resolved various long-standing corruption allegations against it. In America it pleaded guilty to wide-ranging graft that the Justice Department described as “staggering”, involving hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to officials in numerous countries, and to running a scheme to manipulate oil prices. In Britain it indicated it would plead guilty to bribery connected with oil operations in five African countries. And in Brazil it is paying a fine for corrupt payments to Petrobras, the state-controlled oil company. Gary Nagle, who took over as chief executive last year from Ivan Glasenberg, on whose watch the wrongdoing took place, stressed that Glencore has taken significant steps to enhance its ethics and compliance programme.