Mining Billionaire Charged With Corruption In British Court: What You Need To Know

Billionaire and former Glencore CEO Alex Beard charged with corruption in UK along with four others, accused of making corrupt payments in West Africa.

A British billionaire who made a fortune while working for a top commodities company was charged with corruption on Thursday. The company previously pleaded guilty to corruption in 2022.

What Happened: Alex Beard, a billionaire and former head of oil at Glencore ADR GLNCY, has been charged with corruption by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), alongside four other former Glencore employees, per Bloomberg. Beard served as head of oil at Glencore for over a decade before leaving in 2019.

Beard is accused of conspiring to make corrupt payments to benefit Glencore's oil operations in West Africa. The SFO accused Beard of improper actions with government officials and employees of state-owned oil firms in Nigeria and Cameroon between 2007 and 2014.

Beard's former deputy, Andy Gibson also faces allegations of making corrupt payments in Nigeria, Cameroon and the Ivory Coast, and falsifying invoices. Additional charges were brought against Paul Hopkirk, Ramon Labiaga and Martin Wakefield, former Glencore employees involved in West African oil trading. All four former Glencore employees are set to appear in a British court on Sept. 10.

Glencore, founded in 1974 by the late Marc Rich, is a commodity giant with mines, oil, trading, and agriculture operations worldwide. The company — which went public in 2011 — has a market cap of 49.55 billion pounds ($63,273,863,500).

This follows Glencore’s 2022 guilty plea to corruption and market manipulation in the U.S. and U.K., resulting in $1.5 billion in fines. Beard, who founded Adaptogen Capital post-Glencore, exited his role there on July 12.

"Bribery damages financial markets and causes lasting harm to communities," SFO Director Nick Ephgrave told the Financial Times in a statement. "Today's action is an important step towards exposing overseas corruption and holding those who are responsible to account." 

Beard has a net worth of $2 billion according to Forbes. Beard owned 2.5% of Glencore in 2019. He was born in London and attended Oxford University.

Price Action: Glencore shares were trading at $10.69, down 3.26% at the time of writing.

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