Glencore Goes From Crisis to Crisis With Possible Bribery Probe – by Thomas Wilson (Bloomberg News – May 21, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

It’s becoming hard to keep track of all of Glencore’s legal battles in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The world’s biggest commodity trader is facing the possibility of a bribery investigation by British prosecutors over its work with Dan Gertler, an Israeli billionaire and close friend of Congo President Joseph Kabila.

That’s on top of other disputes, like a conflict with Gertler over unpaid royalties. The Swiss trader is also fighting the government over a new mining code that hikes taxes, and is part of a court case with Congo’s state-owned miner Gecamines, which is pushing to dissolve a local operating unit, saying Glencore overburdened it with debt.

The Glencore unit says the debt situation is solvable and dissolving the business is premature. Still, the legal challenges cast a shadow over Glencore and highlight the risks of doing business in the central African nation.

In the last 10 years, while other major competitors such as Rio Tinto Group and BHP Billiton Ltd. turned away from Congo’s rich resources, unnerved by the difficulty of operating in the country, Glencore’s chief Ivan Glasenberg invested heavily.

For the rest of this article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-21/glencore-goes-from-crisis-to-crisis-with-possible-bribery-probe