The mining and commodity-trading giant has agreed to pay $1 billion to resolve charges that two of its units bribed officials in several countries and manipulated oil prices.
The company and prosecutors in the United States, Britain and Brazil had been in negotiations for months over the company's operations in the U.S., the Democratic Republic of Congo, Venezuela and Nigeria.
The announcement comes as gas prices have soared, in large part because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and as the Biden administration is concerned about how high prices might affect Democrats in the upcoming elections.
Mr. Garland, flanked by federal prosecutors and regulators from New York and Connecticut, told that the rule of law requires that there not be one rule for the powerful and another for the powerless.
The settlement was expected. In February, the company set aside over a billion dollars in reserves to cover fines and clawbacks from international investigations into its operations in Africa and South America.
The company agreed to pay $485 million in connection with a multiyear scheme to manipulate benchmark prices for oil, as part of the settlement.
Two midlevel traders have pleaded guilty, one for conspiring to manipulate a fuel-oil benchmark and the other for paying officials in Nigeria for a favorable contract with a state-owned oil conglomerate.
The company has yet to resolve investigations in Switzerland, where it is based, and the Netherlands, but executives said in a statement posted on the company's website that they believed they would not need to set aside more money.
Gary Nagle, the chief executive of Glencore, wanted to distance the company's current leadership from the activities of executives four years ago, listing a set of internal controls put into place to ensure the company complies with the law and accepted industry practices.
The board, management team and I are very clear that this type of behavior has no place in the company.
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