Dan Gertler bribe allegations back to haunt Glencore’s Ivan Glasenberg
Glencore is well positioned to reap the rewards of surging copper and cobalt prices, but now is being hemmed in by legal troubles in DRC
London — It’s becoming hard to keep track of all of Glencore’s legal battles in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). 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 DRC President Joseph Kabila. That’s on top of other disputes, such as 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 past 10 years, while other major competitors such as Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton turn...
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