A Global Witness investigation found that from 2013 to 2016 Toronto-listed Katanga Mining, majority-owned by Glencore, made “signature bonus” and other payments totalling over $75 million to Dan Gertler’s Africa Horizons company...Under the original contract these payments would have gone to Gécamines, but Global Witness wrote to Glencore after reviewing company documents and filings that raised questions over the true recipient of the payments. Glencore admitted that they were made to Gertler’s company. “It’s outrageous that Glencore has been making payments to a friend of the Congolese President who has been accused of bribery and corruption, and then not telling its shareholders or the public that it’s done so,” said Pete Jones from the Congo team at Global Witness. “Glencore has been in business in Congo with Gertler for a decade and has known about the allegations that have been made against him for years.”...Gertler’s spokesman told...that his company “vigorously contests any and all accusations of wrongdoing in any of its dealings in [Congo]”...Glencore declared the 2013 and 2014 payments it had made to Gertler’s company as payments to Gécamines, in its submissions to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). Glencore has now admitted...that these payments actually went to Gertler from 2013 to 2016. “The discrepancy between Katanga Mining’s filings and the real recipient of these huge payments runs the risk of misleading investors. Gertler is a well-known corruption risk in Congo’s mining sector and Gécamines is famously opaque. Investors need to ask Glencore why it felt comfortable making these payments and why it didn’t clearly disclose Gertler as the recipient,” said Jones...Glencore said it had “complied with its disclosure obligations” under Canadian securities law and the rules governing the Toronto Stock Exchange. It said it had declared the payments to Gertler’s company as payments to Gecamines in its EITI submission “because the payments discharged KCC’s [Kamoto Copper Company - the mining project in Congo] obligations to make these payments to Gecamines”...Glencore said that it was satisfied that there was an underlying basis for the assignment of royalty rights from Gecamines to Gertler. Fleurette’s spokesperson...did not provide a comment by the deadline...In the past Fleurette has denied any wrongdoing in its Congo deals. In November Fleurette said that what it had received was “far less than the amount…paid for the royalties” and that it “will have suffered a huge loss as a result”. [Refers to ENRC and Och-Ziff Capital Management].