In the first-ever UK corporate conviction on counts of bribery, a London court heard that Glencore airlifted money bribes to officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

The UK prosecutor told Southwark Crown Court that third-party agents used Glencore funds to bribe officials in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, and South Sudan, resulting in $128 million in damages.

The Serious Fraud Office SFO’s attorney, Alexandra Healy KC, testified in court that Glencore was involved in the payment of bribes totaling $27 million. The $128 million in damages, which at the time of the offenses were worth £81 million, were “authorised at a senior level,” according to Mr Healy.

Peoples Gazette reported in May that Glencore International A.G. (Glencore) and Glencore Ltd., both subsidiaries of a multi-national commodity trading and mining firm headquartered in Switzerland, pleaded guilty and agreed to pay more than $1.1 billion to resolve the government’s investigations into FCPA violations and a commodity price manipulation scheme.

In the course of the protracted and complicated investigation, the SFO conducted 16 interviews and reviewed more than 1 million documents, including extensive emails and WhatsApp instant message discussions. 

The FBI discovered the bribes for the first time in 2017, and Glencore agreed in May to pay $1.1 billion to U.S. authorities for breaking bribery rules and manipulating commodity prices.

Justice Fraser, the judge at Southwark Crown Court, will likely sentence Glencore Energy UK Ltd. on Thursday after considering the injury Glencore acknowledged as well as other elements like the degree of the company’s guilt.