Torbjörn gahnström

Torbj&#;rn T&#;rnqvist

Co-founder & Chairman

Gunvor Group

Co-founder and Chairman, Mr. Törnqvist has spent more than 40 years in the oil and gas industry, and co-founded Gunvor Group in He began his career at British Petroleum, where he worked from to , and then became Head of Oil Trading at Scandinavian Trading Co AB until Prior to founding Gunvor, he was Managing Director for the oil division of Intermaritime Group Petrotrade. A consummate entrepreneur, Törnqvist has drawn on his extensive knowledge of the international oil markets to establish Gunvor Group as one of the world’s leading oil trading companies. He is now focused on developing Gunvor’s diversified operations a fully integrated global commodities trading house. Born in Stockholm and a Swedish citizen, Törnqvist received a business degree from Stockholm University.

The sums skyrocket

The scale of the Ecuadorian scandal hits home.

“70 million in commissions, of which 22 million went to Ecuadorian officials. It’s huge – much bigger than Congo-Brazzaville”

exclaims a trader, who estimates that this time it will be much harder for Gunvor to sell the story that a rogue employee had acted alone, duping his superiors, in making such significant payments.

A former Gunvor employee ended up by pleading guilty, forced by the FBI who had recorded his conversations. He gave details of corruption pacts and pointed the finger at his superiors. When it was published, the US criminal complaint underlined that, within the trading house, “other people […] were aware that the payments would be used, at least in part, to pay bribes to Ecuadorian officials.”

The chain of responsibility has yet to be determined. In Geneva, some have invented theories relating to Gunvor’s senior leadership, whose names already cropped up in the Congolese scandal without facing sanctions, like the manager of the crude oil department and the manager in charge of Europe and Asia. Or, in the case of Ecuador, the person in charge of Finance i