Marc Rich (born Marc David Reich on December 18, 1934) is an international commodities trader. He fled the United States in 1983 to live in Switzerland while being prosecuted on charges of tax
evasion and illegally making oil deals with Iran during the hostage crisis.
He received a presidential pardon from United
States President Bill Clinton in 2001.
Life
Rich was born to a Jewish working class family in Antwerp,
Belgium in 1934. The Rich family immigrated to the
United States in 1942 to avoid the Nazis. Young Marc attended high school at the Rhodes School in Manhattan. He
later attended New York University, but dropped out after one semester to go work
for Philipp Brothers (now Phibro LLC). Rich worked as commodities trader for his father, who
sought to build an American manufacturing fortune through burlap sack production. Marc Rich later
worked with Philipp Brothers, a dealer in raw metals, learning about the international raw materials markets and commercial
trading with poor, third world nations. One of his biggest market coups came during the Arab
oil embargo of 1973-74, when he used his Middle Eastern contacts to circumvent the embargo and buy crude oil from Iran and Iraq.
After purchasing the crude for roughly $12 per bbl. Rich doubled the price and sold it to supply-starved U.S. oil companies. In
1974 he and co-worker Pincus Green set up their own company
His tutelage under Philipp Brothers afforded Rich opportunities to strike deals with various dictatorial regimes and embargoed
nations, such as Iran, using a special relationship with Ayatollah Khomeini. His company Marc Rich Real Estate GmbH is involved in large developer
projects (e.g. in Prague, Czech Republic [1].
Forbes ranked Rich as the 242nd richest American in 2006 with a
net worth of $1.5 billion [2].
Scandal
In 1983 Rich and partner Pincus Green were indicted by
U.S. Attorney and future mayor of New York
City Rudolph Giuliani, on charges of tax evasion and illegal trading with Iran.
They were indicted while they were in Switzerland. The pair failed to return to the U.S.
following the indictment, and were on the FBI's Most Wanted List for many years.
On January 20, 2001, hours before leaving office,
President Bill Clinton granted Rich
a presidential pardon. Since Rich's former wife and mother of his three children, socialite
Denise Rich, had made large donations to the Democratic Party and the Clinton Library during Clinton's time in office, Clinton's
critics alleged that Rich's pardon had been bought. Rich had also made substantial donations to Israeli charitable foundations.
Clinton explained his decision by noting that similar situations were settled in civil, not criminal court, and cited clemency
pleas from Israeli government officials, including Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Federal
Prosecutor Mary Jo White was appointed to investigate. She stepped down before the
investigation was finished and was replaced by James Comey. Though Comey was critical of
Clinton's pardons, he could not find any grounds on which to indict him.
During hearings after Rich's pardon, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who had represented Rich from
1985 until the spring of 2000, denied that Rich had violated the tax laws but criticized him for trading with Iran at a time when
that country was holding U.S. hostages [3]. In his letter
to the New York Times, Bill Clinton explained why he pardoned Rich, noting that U.S. tax professors Bernard Wolfman of Harvard
Law School and Martin Ginsburg of Georgetown University Law Center concluded that no crime was committed, and that the companies'
tax reporting position was reasonable [4]. In the same
letter Clinton listed Libby as one of three "distinguished Republican lawyers" who supported Rich's pardon.
Legacy
Marc Rich's corporate legacy is Glencore, a company he founded, domiciled in Baar (close to
Zug, Switzerland) but centred in London[citation needed]. Glencore also spawned many
imitations[citation needed].
Citizenship
While most sources agree that Rich voluntarily relinquished his U.S. citizenship, there is one contrary opinion [5] that "Rich assumed an oath in Spain would remove his US
citizenship. The Spanish naturalization oath he took included an explicit renunciation of US citizenship. Due to a variety of
circumstances the court judged that he was still a US citizen." In order to renounce U.S. citizenship, a citizen must "appear in
person before a U.S. consular or diplomatic officer" outside the U.S. and "sign an oath of renunciation" [6].
Private life
Rich, after spending several years in the canton of Zug, moved his domicile to Meggen, a city part of the Swiss canton of Lucerne, where he zealously guards his privacy, but managed to be hunted down by a 60 Minutes TV crew once and he agreed to a one-time only interview. He resides in a property called "La
villa rose" (the pink villa) on the shores of the Vierwaldstättersee (also known as Lake
Lucerne). Rich also owns property in the ski resort of St. Moritz, Switzerland and in Marbella, Spain. He is
an important art collector and friends say he lives surrounded by Picassos, Chagalls and Miros [7] .
In May 2007 Rich received an honorary doctorate from
Bar Ilan University in recognition of his contribution to Israel and to the university's research programs [8] [9].
Notes
See also
External links
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