NGOs Say US Should Stop Backing Trafigura After Bribery Charges
- Kris Vansanten
- Apr 2, 2024
- 1 min read
Updated: Apr 22
According to Bloomberg News, several NGOs ask that the Ex-Im bank “immediately terminate its support for Trafigura and in doing so send a strong signal that the US government is not willing to work with entities under investigation for fraud or bribery.” It is signed by Friends of the Earth United States, Oil Change International and Public Citizen.
Trafigura last year announced it had received $400 million in financing backed by insurance from US Ex-Im bank that would be used to buy US liquefied natural gas to supply to customers primarily in Europe.
[...] The NGOs say that the charge [for bribery] against Wainwright [a high-ranked Trafigura employee] “shows that it is not a few mid-level bad apples who are responsible, but possibly a corporate-sanctioned, decades long practice of encouraging corruption to increase profit.”
Isn't it also time for politicians, (Magic Circle) law firms, audit firms, consultants, banks, corporate finance advisors and PR firms active in Belgium to re-assess their KYC and CSR criteria and apply them again on their client/partner portfolio, and communicate publicly (i) whether bribery is one of their criteria for non-acceptance and (ii) whether their portfolio of clients/partners adequately reflects this, or whether appropriate action has been taken to remediate this?
Isn't it time for regulatory bodies like e.g. the US and EU entities in charge of imposing trade sanctions, to establish very strict and enforcable rules and sanctions to exclude parties charged for bribery and corruption from the business economic ecosystem, and to impose sanctions on banks and service providers violating these rules?
