Alex Beard, the billionaire former head of oil trading at Glencore, has pleaded not guilty to bribery charges relating to the Swiss commodity giant's operations in West Africa.
Beard, 59, denied two counts of conspiracy to make corrupt payments at Southwark Crown Court in London on September 10. Prosecutors allege he was involved in a conspiracy to make corrupt payments to government or state-owned oil company officials in Nigeria between 2010 and 2014 and in Cameroon between 2007 and 2014.
He appeared in the dock alongside Glencore's former head of oil operations, Andrew Gibson, 66, who denied four counts of conspiracy to make corrupt payments relating to Nigeria, Cameroon and Ivory Coast, as well as an additional charge of conspiracy to falsify documents required for an accounting purpose.
The case was brought by the Serious Fraud Office, which charged six former Glencore employees in 2024 with conspiring to make corrupt payments to benefit the company's oil operations in West Africa. The four other defendants, David Perez, Paul Hopkirk, Ramon Labiaga and Martin Wakefield, have also pleaded not guilty to related charges. All six are due to stand trial from October 2027.
The prosecution follows Glencore's earlier corporate bribery case. In 2022, Glencore Energy (UK) pleaded guilty to seven counts of bribery relating to payments made to secure preferential access to oil in Africa and was ordered to pay £280 million in penalties and confiscation of proceeds. The corporate case was separate from the current prosecution of the former employees as individuals.
Beard, who amassed a multi-billion-pound fortune during his long career at Glencore, had indicated at his first court appearance in September 2024 that he would plead not guilty. The charges relate to the awarding of oil contracts spanning Cameroon, Nigeria and Ivory Coast between 2007 and 2014. Perez, one of the six, faces an additional allegation over the falsification of invoices sent to Glencore's London office and marked as service fees to a Nigerian oil consultancy. All six defendants were granted unconditional bail when first charged. The individual prosecutions come after the company itself admitted wrongdoing: in 2022 Glencore Energy (UK) pleaded guilty to seven counts of bribery over payments to secure preferential access to oil, and was ordered to pay £280 million in penalties and confiscation of proceeds.
The trial, when it begins next year, is expected to be one of the most significant corporate corruption cases heard in a British courtroom, testing the SFO's ability to secure convictions against senior executives in the wake of its recent setbacks.