Colombia In 2006, Swiss public television (
TSR) reported that allegations of corruption and severe human rights violations were being raised against Glencore due to the alleged conduct of its Colombian
Cerrejón mining subsidiary. Local union president Francisco Ramirez accused Cerrejón of forced expropriations and evacuations of entire villages to enable mine expansion, in complicity with Colombian authorities. A representative of the local
Wayuu community also accused Colombian paramilitary and military units, including those charged with Cerrejón mining security, of forcibly driving Wayuu people off their land in what she described as a "massacre". In 2012, a
BBC investigation uncovered sale documents showing the company had paid the associates of paramilitary killers in Colombia. In 2011, a Colombian court was told by former paramilitaries that they stole the land so they could sell it to Glencore's subsidiary Prodeco, to start an open-cast coal mine; the court accepted their evidence and concluded that coal was the motive for the massacre. Glencore disputed the court's ruling. In 2009, Glencore/Xstrata's "huge coal operation in Colombia, Prodeco, was fined a total of nearly $700,000 for several environmental violations [running in earlier years], including waste disposal without a permit and producing coal without an environmental management plan".
Democratic Republic of the Congo The company's
Luilu copper refinery uses acid to extract the copper. For three years after taking over the mine, it continued to allow the waste acid to flow into a river. The chief executive, Ivan Glasenberg, was interviewed for
Panorama by
John Sweeney and said 'It was impossible to remedy any way faster' Glencore said the pollution started long before the company took over the refinery and that it has now ended. Glencore was also accused of acquiring illicit "
conflict minerals" In a detailed letter sent to Global Witness, the company denied any wrongdoing. Glencore said at the time "During the period when these transactions took place, Glencore had decided in general not to increase its shareholdings in DRC projects." Glencore acquired a 50% share in SAMREF Congo SPRL in 2007, a Congolese-registered company holding 80% of the
Mutanda Mine. According to Global Witness, SAMREF recommended on 1 March 2011 that Congo's state-run company
Gécamines, holding the other 20% of the
Mutanda Mine, sell this share to an entity also associated with Dan Gertler and went on to question the links between Glencore and Dan Gertler. Glencore has been designated operator of the Mutanda Mine. In March 2018, it was reported that Glencore would sell one third (13,800 tonnes) of its cobalt output to China's battery recycler GEM. 18,000 tonnes are to be sold in 2019, and 21,000 in 2020. In December 2020, the company extended the agreement with GEM to at least 2029. During the FT Commodities Global Summit in Lausanne, Switzerland, CEO Glasenberg stated "if cobalt falls into the hands of the Chinese, yeah you won't see EVs being produced in Europe etc." Yet, Glasenberg then said that he was prepared to sell DRC cobalt mines to China if the price was good. Concurrently, a Chinese take-over of some of the mines became a real possibility due to a legal dispute about royalty payments to Gertler and Gécamines. The DRC supplies 60% of the world's cobalt ore, while China produces more than 80% of the world's refined cobalt. In December 2018, Bloomberg reported that the Chinese battery firm GEM withdrew from its purchase contract with the commodities trader due to a price crash and oversupply of cobalt ore and recycled sources. In November 2018, export stopped due to oversupply and uranium contamination at the Kamoto Project; the company planned to fix this with a US$25 million ion-exchange refining plant. In a June 2018 "debt-for-equity swap", Glencore's
Katanga Mining Ltd. agreed to a recapitalization plan involving a US$5.6 billion debt write-off and a $150 million payment to the Congolese state mining company Gécamines. According to company sources, Gertler will receive a royalty of about 25 million euros in 2018. Later in June 2018, Glencore also announced that it had resumed paying royalties to Gertler's Ventora Development in unpaid and future royalties from the subsidiaries Mutanda Mining ($695 million) and Kamoto Copper Co ($2.28 billion). Gertler had sued Glencore in a Congolese court after payments stopped when he was sanctioned by the U.S. government in December 2017. The mines produce
copper and
cobalt, needed for lithium-ion batteries in mobile devices and electric vehicles. Glencore and Gertler were in a legal dispute, threatening the strategic supply of the metals and ownership of the mining entities. Glencore paid the royalties in a currency other than dollars to skirt sanctions and discussed the deal with Swiss and U.S. authorities. Glencore also settled a dispute involving the
Kamoto copper and cobalt mine, but differences remain about tax and royalty payment. In July 2018, the DRC enforced a new mining code, which forced Glencore to pay higher taxes. In response, the company began talks with the Congolese government. In August, CEO Glasberg announced that Glencore was considering legal action. On 22 June 2021, the company reported the Mutanda mine would be reopened towards the end of 2021 and return to production in 2022. Earlier, Glencore officials discussed the re-opening of the mine with Congo's mining ministry in
Kinshasa. Cobalt prospects for the company increased significantly since the inception of a long-term battery supply contract with
Tesla Motors in mid-2020. From 2007 to 2018, Glencore paid $27.5 million to third parties to bribe government officials in Congo. In December 2022, the company agreed to pay $180 million to Congo to settle the case.
Morocco In 2013 and 2014, a subsidiary of Glencore Xstrata was awarded two offshore drilling licences off the coast of
Western Sahara.
Zambia According to a Reuters article in 2011 "[O]fficials in Zambia believe pollution from Glencore's
Mopani mine is causing
acid rain and health problems in an area where 5 million people live." The emissions were reported to exceed the WHO-recommendations by a factor of 70 up to 2013. The emissions now exceed the recommendations by 3% of 70 = 210%. In January 2019, a delegation from the
Federal Department of Foreign Affairs under the leadership of
Ignazio Cassis made a controversial visit to the Mopani Copper Mines that also produce cobalt ores. The Swiss government had previously issued human rights guidelines for firms operating in the commodity sector, which is of strategic importance to both countries. The visit was heavily criticised by
Amnesty International and Swiss watchdog groups while the federal councilor defended his stance, pointing out the modernisation of production facilities, improved health care and better training for young workers.
Paradise Papers On 5 November 2017, the
Paradise Papers, a set of confidential
electronic documents relating to
offshore investment, revealed that Glencore loaned $45 million to Israeli billionaire
Dan Gertler in exchange for his help with officials of the
Democratic Republic of Congo in negotiations over a
joint venture with state-owned
Gécamines at the
Katanga copper mine, in which one of the board members was Glencore major shareholder
Telis Mistakidis. Glencore, which had effectively taken over Katanga, agreed to vote for the joint venture. The loan document specifically provided that repayment would be owed if agreement was not reached within three months. Gertler and Glencore have denied wrongdoing.
Appleby had worked for Glencore and its founder
Marc Rich on major projects in the past, even after his indictment in 1983. Rich was indicted in the United States on federal charges of
tax evasion and making controversial oil deals with Iran during the
Iran hostage crisis. He received a controversial
presidential pardon from
U.S. President Bill Clinton on 20 January 2001,
Clinton's last day in office. In 2024, it was reported that the Chilean tax authorities were initiating the process of recouping more than $1.5 billion in unpaid taxes from Glencore. The Australian branch of Glencore has been demonstrated to have carried out some $25 billion in
cross-currency interest rate swaps, complex financial instruments the
Australian Taxation Office suspects of being used to avoid paying taxes in Australia. Glencore is also a co-owner of large coal freighters fleet SwissMarine.
Reactions to U.S. sanctions In April 2018, the company started to limit its exposure to
Oleg Deripaska by canceling the plan to swap an 8.75 percent stake in aluminum producer United Co.
Rusal for shares in another one of Deripaska's companies, London-listed
En+ Group Plc. The commodities trader also announced that Chief Executive Officer Ivan Glasenberg had resigned from Rusal's board. In March 2022, the company leadership strongly condemned the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine; it would "review business activities in the country including our equity stakes in En+ and
Rosneft." Glencore owns a 10.55% stake in En+ Group International PJSC, the controlling shareholder of aluminum giant United Co. Rusal International, and less than 1% in Rosneft. The company also stated it had "no operational footprint in Russia". British news outlets, however, noted that Swiss-based Glencore, among other commodity companies, loaded cargoes of oil products onto tankers at Russian ports in mid-March 2022. While some oil companies such as
BP Plc and
Shell Plc were pressured to halt Russian oil purchases, Glencore remained in the lucrative business for trading Russian crude.
Investigation by U.S. Department of Justice On 3 July 2018, the company announced that it received a subpoena from the
U.S. Department of Justice "to produce documents and other records with respect to compliance with the
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the United States money laundering statutes". The requested documents relate to the Glencore Group's business in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Venezuela from 2007 to present. In May 2018, Bloomberg reported that Britain's
Serious Fraud Office may also open a bribery investigation into Glencore's dealing with
Dan Gertler and DRC President
Joseph Kabila. On 24 May 2022, Glencore pleaded guilty to multiple counts of bribery and agreed to pay penalties of about $1.5 billion.
International Rights Advocates v. Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Tesla The International Rights Advocates groups filed a lawsuit,
International Rights Advocates v. Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Tesla, on 15 December 2019 against
Apple,
Microsoft,
Dell, and
Tesla that names Glencore. The lawsuit claims that the named companies benefited from and aided and abetted child labor in mining companies' cobalt operations. It is argued that Glencore-owned mines sold cobalt to
Umicore, which then sold the cobalt to be used in lithium batteries in Apple, Microsoft, Dell, and Tesla products. Glencore released a statement through a spokesperson noting the allegations and stating that "[Glencore] does not tolerate any form of child, forced, or compulsory labour." The case was dismissed, and International Rights Advocates appealed in 2022. In May 2022, Glencore pled guilty to charges of corrupt dealings with foreign governments, and agreed to pay a $1.8 billion fine. The corrupt practices occurred from 2007 to 2018, and included actions to "make and conceal corrupt payments and bribes through intermediaries for the benefit of foreign officials across multiple countries". In August 2020, Glencore suspended its dividend payments to investors, saying it will instead prioritise paying down its debt in the immediate term. It was the first major mining company to shelve its dividend owing to the business impacts of the
COVID-19 pandemic.
Long-term supply contract with Tesla In June 2020, it was reported that
Tesla Motors partnered with Glencore for the future supply of cobalt in their lithium-ion batteries. Just a year earlier,
BMW did the same with Glencore and the
Bou Azzer mine in
Morocco. Initially Tesla wanted to eliminate the controversial metal from its battery formula, but then the company decided for its continued use, boosting cobalt prospects significantly, according to industry experts.
UK SFO charges and continued investigations In 2022, Glencore's UK subsidiary twice pleaded guilty to corruption charges levelled by the
Serious Fraud Office (SFO). These charges accused Glencore of paying over of bribes between 2011 and 2016 to officials in Africa to "secure access to oil and make illicit profit". On May 24, Glencore Energy UK Limited indicated in court that it would plead guilty to five counts of bribery and two counts of failure to prevent bribery under the UK Bribery Act 2010. The SFO found that over in bribes were paid in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and South Sudan between 2011 and 2016 for preferential access to oil, and accused Glencore of "profit-driven bribery and corruption".
Human rights abuse accusations Since 2010 there were over 70 human rights abuse accusations against Glencore documented by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre.
Lobbying On 6 March 2019,
The Guardian Australia accused Glencore, aided by consulting firm
CT Group, of engaging in a large-scale, globally coordinated lobbying campaign to promote coal use "by undermining environmental activists, influencing politicians and spreading sophisticated pro-coal messaging on social media." The campaign was started in 2017 and ran until 2019, when it was shut down in February, according to Glencore. ==Board of directors==