A former Glencore PLC trader pleaded guilty Monday to what prosecutors described as a conspiracy to pay millions of dollars in bribes to officials in Nigeria and elsewhere in exchange for favorable contracts with a state-owned oil company.

Anthony Stimler, a U.K. citizen who worked for a Glencore subsidiary on the commodity trading company's West Africa desk, pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and conspiring to commit money laundering, court filings show. The guilty plea was reported earlier by Bloomberg News.

GLOBAL NEWS

Fed Meeting Will Focus on Tapering Timeline

Federal Reserve officials are set to resume deliberations Wednesday about how and when to begin paring their asset purchases amid an economic rebound clouded by supply-chain bottlenecks and rising Covid-19 cases.

Hot Housing Market Lets Banks Sell Mortgage Risk

A red-hot housing market is enabling banks to sell a new kind of bond that shares the risk of mortgage and loan defaults with institutional investors.

Texas Capital Bank recently sold $275 million of securities to investors looking to cash in on the pandemic-fueled boom in home prices. The bonds are backed by short-term loans the bank makes to mortgage lenders. When those lenders' borrowers default, the investors in the bonds effectively cover the loss.

Lawmakers Say Infrastructure Deal Within Reach

WASHINGTON-Lawmakers expressed renewed optimism Tuesday that they were close to reaching a deal on a roughly $1 trillion infrastructure package as they worked through a series of 11th-hour holdups.

After a day of partisan sniping over last-minute disputes, lawmakers said Tuesday they were approaching resolution to some of the issues that had bogged down the final stretch of negotiations. But they still hadn't finished their talks, weeks after the group announced that they had agreed to a loose framework for a deal.

Biden to Propose Buy American Rule for Government Procurements

WASHINGTON-The Biden administration is proposing a rule that would accelerate federal procurement policy to require a higher level of American-made products.

Under an initiative to be announced Wednesday, the government would require that products obtained under the longstanding "Buy American" program have at least 60% of the value of components made in the U.S., up from the current 55% threshold. That would increase to 75% by 2029, White House officials said.

Vaccination Rates Drive Global Economic Growth Prospects, IMF Says

The economic outlook is diverging for countries based largely on how well they are rolling out Covid-19 vaccinations, according to new forecasts released Tuesday by the International Monetary Fund.

Economic prospects are improving for advanced economies, where nearly 40% of the population has been vaccinated, despite challenges from new variants of the coronavirus, the IMF said. At the same time, far lower vaccination rates have left emerging and developing economies more vulnerable to additional waves of the pandemic and the associated economic fallout.

GOP Bill Attempts to Inject Life Into Stalled Internet Privacy Talks

With work toward a federal privacy law largely stalled for the past 18 months, a top GOP lawmaker is trying to turn back the clock.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R., Miss.) plans Wednesday to introduce the Setting an American Framework to Ensure Data Access, Transparency, and Accountability Act. The new bill from the Senate Commerce Committee's ranking member largely reverts to a 2019 draft bill for ensuring consumers' control over personal data collected or processed by companies.

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

07-28-21 0615ET