Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo joins ACG Metals board
Pompeo joins ACG as part of a strategic partnership the firm has signed with Impact Investments LLC, where he is executive chairman.
Trafigura Group is seeking permission to subpoena Wall Street banks for information that might help the commodity trading giant track down the more than half a billion dollars it lost in an alleged nickel fraud.
Trafigura is still chasing down the funds almost two years after news broke that it was on the hook for almost $600 million of nickel in containers that turned out to be almost worthless carbon steel. It’s suing Prateek Gupta — the businessman it paid the money to — and companies affiliated with his network in London.
The trading house filed a request in a New York court on Monday to serve a subpoena on 15 financial institutions “likely to have processed any transfers of the US dollar proprietary funds” it has so far been unable to find, despite a freezing order against Gupta.
“Despite a worldwide freezing order and multiple disclosure orders, the English defendants have refused to provide the information Trafigura needs to determine the whereabouts of all the funds it paid,” the New York filing said.
According to the filing, Trafigura is seeking information from the US or New York branches of Bank of America Corp., Bank of China, Bank of New York Mellon Corp., Barclays Plc, BNP Paribas SA, Citibank, Commerzbank AG, Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Holdings Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Société Générale SA, Standard Chartered Plc, UBS Group AG and Wells Fargo & Co., as well as The Clearing House Payments Company LLC.
In a London court case, Gupta has denied the charges against him. The businessman has also faced financial difficulties, with TMT Metals Holdings Ltd. – a British metals trader controlled by Gupta — wound up by a creditor in 2023.
A Trafigura spokesperson declined to comment. A spokesperson for Gupta did not immediately comment. Citi, JPMorgan, Bank of New York Mellon, BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank declined to comment, while the rest did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
(By Archie Hunter and Jonathan Browning)
Read More: How Citigroup helped lift the lid on Trafigura’s nickel nightmare
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