Trafigura Group is carrying out a “major internal audit” after being hit by an alleged nickel fraud, Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Weir said in his first public comments on the subject.
“You’ve got to learn from experiences like this,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. He emphasized that the alleged fraud was limited to a particular line of Trafigura’s business, and that the company had found no internal involvement from its own employees.
Still, Weir acknowledged that he could not say for sure that there would be no other similar issues in other parts of Trafigura’s business.
“You put in all the checks and balances and controls that you can possibly do,” he said. “You can never say there’s not going to be problems in our business.”
Trafigura, one of the largest traders of energy and metals, shocked the commodities world last month when it announced it was facing losses of nearly $600 million after finding that cargoes of nickel it had bought didn’t contain any nickel. It is taking legal action against Prateek Gupta, the Indian businessman it accuses of perpetrating a “systematic fraud.”
A spokesman for Gupta has said that he is planning a “robust response” to Trafigura’s allegations.
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