Oil Trading Is Still Rife With Bribes. Time the Industry Cleaned Up.
A series of lawsuits suggests kickbacks to government officials are still viewed as business as usual.
Bribery is still rife in the oil-trading business.
Photograph: CreativaImages/iStockphoto/Getty Images
Torbjörn Törnqvist, co-founder of Gunvor Group Ltd. and one of oil trading’s most senior executives, famously said about his industry: “There’s a lot of skeletons, and many of them, most of them, will never be surfaced.” Never say never. It’s taken too long, but prosecutors are now unearthing those bones, revealing an ugly graveyard of bribes paid to government officials in return for lucrative contracts.
A series of criminal cases and lawsuits involving some of the largest independent oil trading firms has convinced me that corruption remains endemic. But unless governments impose tougher penalties, oil traders will continue to dismiss fines as the cost of doing business.