Notorious Oil Trader, Pardoned by Clinton

By
JAMES HERRON
,
JOHN LETZING
and
ALEX MACDONALD

Marc Rich, the oil trader who was pardoned by then U.S. President Bill Clinton in 2001 over charges of racketeering and tax evasion, has died at his home in Switzerland at the age of 78. Mr. Rich started the company that was to become the commodity giant Glencore-Xstrata.

Marc Rich was a brash international commodities trader whose trading of oil with the revolutionary government of Iran while it held U.S. hostages in 1980 led U.S. authorities to charge him with tax evasion and trading with the enemy.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Commodities trader Marc Rich has died aged 78.

His company, Marc Rich & Co., now part of Glencore Xstrata PLC, eventually paid more than $200 million in a settlement. But the charges against Mr. Rich, who had fled to Switzerland, remained until he was pardoned in January 2001 by Bill Clinton in the final hours of his presidency.

His ex-wife, Denise Rich, a Democratic Party fundraiser, denied at the time that her donations of more than $1 million to Democrats between 1993 and 2001 were linked to the pardon.

Mr. Clinton later said a trusted former aide convinced him that the pardon was the right thing to do. A spokesman for Mr. Clinton didn’t respond to an emailed request Wednesday for a comment.

Mr. Rich, who died Wednesday in Switzerland at age 78, helped pioneer the spot-oil market during the 1970s, when the OPEC oil boycott threatened to bring Western economies to their knees.

His long business career included bartering gas for sugar in the early days of post-Soviet Russia, representing the Marxist Algerian regime in its oil sales to Exxon, and helping Malaysia stockpile tin to drive up prices.

Mr. Rich remained in Switzerland after the pardon, and died Wednesday in a hospital in Lucerne as the result of a stroke. He will be buried in Israel. Today, Glencore Xstrata is one of the world’s largest mining and commodities-trading companies, with a market capitalization of about $56 billion.

Born to a Jewish family in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1934, Mr. Rich immigrated to the U.S. in 1941 with his family.

At the age of 20 he joined Philipp Bros., a New-York-based commodity-dealing firm, where he rose from the mailroom to become a metals trader and then pioneered the spot-oil market.

Most oil was delivered under long-term contracts, and Mr. Rich became expert at locating fresh supplies and the tankers to transport it. He made huge profits for Philipp Bros. during the 1973 Arab oil embargo.

But when his demand for a seven-figure bonus was refused, he left to found Marc Rich & Co., taking several Philipp Bros. traders with him. The company was based in Switzerland, although it had a large office in New York.

The new firm prospered during the oil shocks of the 1970s and by the early 1980s had 40 offices in 30 countries.

Among Mr. Rich’s other investments was 20th Century-Fox, a movie studio he bought jointly with oil magnate Marvin Davis. In 1983, Mr. Rich sold his share to Mr. Davis shortly before Mr. Davis sold it to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., which also owns The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Rich sold his company in 1993 and more recently operated a small trading firm in Zug, Switzerland. He also started philanthropic foundations in Lucerne that sponsor the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra as well as humanitarian programs in Europe and Israel.
—Stephen Miller contributed to this article.—Email remembrances@wsj.com
Write to James Herron at james.herron@dowjones.com, John Letzing at john.letzing@dowjones.com and Alex MacDonald at alex.macdonald@dowjones.com
A version of this article appeared June 27, 2013, on page A7 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Notorious Oil Trader, Pardoned by Clinton.

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