"Trafigura targeted by US and Swiss over corruption", 6 Dec 2023

Trafigura Group and one of its longstanding top executives have been charged over allegations of bribing public officials in Angola, in a major blow to one of the world’s largest commodity traders...

In a statement Wednesday, the Swiss federal prosecutor’s office said that Trafigura, through its unit Trafigura Beheer BV, failed to take necessary organizational measures to prevent the payment of bribes in Angola between 2009 and 2011.

The trading house paid €4.3 million euros ($4.6 million) to a bank account in Geneva and made cash payments of $604,000 to an Angolan official between April 2009 and October 2011 in relation to its activities in the country’s petroleum industry, the prosecutor said in the statement...

In return, the Angolan official, the former chief executive officer of a subsidiary of the state oil company Sonangol, favored Trafigura in shipping contracts, the Swiss prosecutor alleges. Trafigura’s alleged profits from those contracts amount to $143.7 million.

Under Swiss law, Trafigura faces penalties equivalent to the total illicit profit plus a fine of up to 5 million francs — or around $150 million in total...

Trafigura said it had been willing to settle the Swiss investigation out of court, but that now it would defend itself in court...

“We sincerely regret these incidents which breached our code of conduct and are contrary to our values,” Trafigura CEO Jeremy Weir said in the statement...

If [the Chief Operating Officer Mike] Wainwright is found guilty, he faces a potential fine or a maximum of five years in prison...

The Swiss attorney general’s office stressed in today’s statement that this is the first time that a case against a company for alleged bribery of public officials has ever been sent to the country’s top criminal court...