Glencore Plc has no exposure to the Indian businessman accused by rival Trafigura Group of perpetrating a nickel fraud of more than half a billion dollars.
Gupta and his companies are “not a counterparty of our company,” Glencore Chief Executive Officer Gary Nagle told journalists on Wednesday. “So we do not have any exposure to that group.”
Trafigura last week accused Prateek Gupta and companies connected to him of perpetrating a “systematic fraud” against it, after finding that nickel cargoes it had bought from him in fact contained no nickel.
In a dig at Glencore’s longstanding rival, Nagle said that his company’s controls meant that he could be sure it would not be hit by a similar situation.
“We have very strong controls and systems in the company, and we are very confident that an incident like that would not be able to happen at Glencore,” he said.
Court filings showed that shortcomings in Trafigura’s controls meant it paid Gupta’s companies hundreds of millions of dollars for cargoes of nickel without always having insisted on certificates verifying the contents, Bloomberg reported earlier this week. The trading house believes it’s likely that none of the 1,104 containers it bought from Gupta actually has any nickel inside.
Gupta and his companies have not responded to requests for comment.
(By Jack Farchy)
Related article: Trafigura faces $577 million loss on alleged nickel fraud
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