Glencore Probe Yields Charges Against Another Former Trader

A former Glencore PLC trader pleaded guilty Monday to what prosecutors described as a conspiracy to pay millions of dollars in bribes to officials in Nigeria and elsewhere in exchange for favorable contracts with a state-owned oil company.

Anthony Stimler, a U.K. citizen who worked for a Glencore subsidiary on the commodity trading company’s West Africa desk, pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and conspiring to commit money laundering, court filings show. The guilty plea was reported earlier by Bloomberg News.

The former Glencore trader is the second to be publicly charged by prosecutors in a set of investigations into Glencore by the U.S. Justice Department, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and others.

Authorities in the U.S. and elsewhere have focused on Glencore’s compliance with antibribery laws such as the FCPA, but in March prosecutors with the Justice Department’s fraud section also secured a guilty plea against former Glencore trader Emilio Jose Heredia Collado on a charge that he conspired to manipulate fuel oil prices.

Glencore on Monday released a statement acknowledging the guilty plea by a former employee and calling the conduct described in court documents “unacceptable.” The company said it has cooperated with the Justice Department and other authorities, and said it has taken steps to strengthen its ethics and compliance program.

Mr. Stimler worked for Glencore from 2002 until 2009, and then again from 2011 to 2019, according to court records, which refer to Glencore as “Company 1.” He was responsible for procuring crude oil from Nigeria on behalf of Glencore.

Lawyers for Mr. Stimler didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

Working with others, Mr. Stimler paid millions of dollars in bribes through intermediary companies in Nigeria and Cyprus to obtain oil contracts with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, according to charging documents. The bribes allowed Glencore to secure more lucrative grades of oil on a more favorable delivery schedule, according to court filings. The NNPC couldn’t be immediately reached for comment.

Mr. Stimler and others conspired to funnel the bribe payments from Switzerland to the U.S., the documents said.

The court records describe seven unnamed co-conspirators from the U.K., France and elsewhere who prosecutors said also participated in the scheme. Mr. Stimler and the co-conspirators used inflated and fraudulent invoices and coded language, such as using the word “newspapers” to discuss bribe payments, to disguise the scheme, according to the court filings.