Billionaire Oil Trader To Battle Bribery Charges In 2027

Alex Beard and five other former executives of Glencore will stand trial in London in mid-2027 to face allegations that they paid bribes to benefit the operations of the commodities giant in Africa.

During proceedings at Southwark Crown Court on Wednesday, the defendants learned of the timeline of their trial in what promises to be a lengthy and complicated case. The UK’s Serious Fraud Office has accused Beard and his former colleagues—Andrew Gibson, Paul Hopkirk, Ramon Labiaga, Martin Wakefield and David Perez—of conspiring to make corrupt payments to government officials and officials of state-owned oil companies.

The six are facing charges related to the awarding of oil contracts in Cameroon, Nigeria and the Ivory Coast from 2007 to 2014. Wakefield, Gibson and Perez are also charged with falsifying documents between 2007 and 2011.

Beard, Gibson and Hopkirk have already indicated that they would plead not guilty to the charges, whereas the others had not indicated their pleas and were not required to do so, according to a Reuters report.

The trial comes after a long-running investigation by the SFO into bribery allegations at Glencore’s London-based trading desk, which had sourced and traded crude oil across Africa.

Beard was Glencore’s highest-ranking executive in the UK when he retired in 2019. He had joined the mining and commodities trader in 1995, after working five years as an oil trader at BP. He set up a fund, Adaptogen Capital, to invest in renewable energy opportunities in 2020, but stepped down as a director in July this year, according to UK Companies House filings. Beard’s wealth is currently estimated at $2 billion on the Forbes Real-Time Billionaire rankings.

Based in Switzerland and listed in London, Glencore has grown over the past 50 years to become a commodities giant with mines and trading operations around the world.

Commodities companies like Glencore regularly face scrutiny over the deals they strike to win contracts in developing countries with large amounts of natural resources.