The global commodity trader, Glencore, recently filed a claim in the English courts against the Jamaica Government agency, Clarendon Alumina Production (CAP). Glencore is attempting to block the forward sale of alumina to a Hong Kong rival. This case represents the epilogue of the long relationship between the Government of Jamaica and the man who created commodity trading, the late Marc Rich.

He is now best known as the flamboyant, billionaire tax-avoider who was controversially pardoned by the outgoing American president Bill Clinton. But his role as a commodity trader is probably more significant, certainly in relation to the history of Jamaica. He was a classic commodity trader, buying raw materials from producing countries then delivering the cargoes to manufacturers and other customers around the world. What marked Rich out was his ability to think long term, his willingness to take risks and his lavish use of bribes. The biggest single source of his wealth was the apartheid regime in South Africa. He ignored economic sanctions to make billions by shipping oil to South Africa. But in 1983 he was indicted in the US for tax evasion and went on the run for 18 years until he was finally pardoned by Clinton.

It was around the time of his indictment that he became heavily involved in Jamaica, effectively cornering the market in Jamaican bauxite alumina. Between 1980 and 1990, Rich advanced the Jamaican Government almost $320 million to purchase bauxite. It did not hurt that he was also alleged to have offered Jamaican politicians lavish hospitality, including flights on his private jet. And he was also reported to have funded the Jamaican track and field team to take part in the 1984 Olympics.

By 1985, aluminium prices had collapsed and the American aluminium producer Alcoa wanted to shut down its Jamaican production facilities. Rich seized the opportunity to suggest that Alcoa lease the facility to the government and then cornered the market in Jamaican bauxite alumina for the next 10 years. Eventually aluminium prices started to climb again and Rich made a fortune.

Michael Manley, then in opposition, was initially very critical of the Jamaica Government’s relationship with Rich. The PNP promised to stop all business with the commodities trader and to closely re-evaluate all existing government contracts with his company. Placards with photomontages were displayed at the party’s rallies depicting Marc Rich with blood on his hands. He was ritually denounced as an exploiter and foreign parasite. But, once back in power, Manley performed a U-turn. It was forced on him by the realisation that Jamaica needed at least $45 million in hard currency to meet its IMF tests, and the only entity willing to advance the money was Marc Rich.

By 1993, Rich had sold his shares in the commodity trading part of the Marc Rich Group, which was then renamed Glencore. Now merged with a Swiss mining group into Glencore Xstrata, the group is today one of the biggest commodities companies in the world. Another of the successor companies to the Marc Rich Group was Trafigura, which is another name known to Jamaican politics.

But Rich himself spent the rest of the nineties living in considerable luxury in Swiss exile, but constantly dodging the forces of US law enforcement. The head of the US Marshals Service once said plaintively: “Rich planned his movements very well. We missed him by a few hours in England, by a day or two in Jamaica, and we tried to get him in Germany, but he was very good at avoiding us.”

The legendary commodities trader Marc Rich died in June this year. And this final court case, by the company that he founded, marks the end of an era for Jamaica and its bauxite alumina industry.