Daniel Ammann (born 1963) is a Swiss journalist and author. He was educated at University of Zurich, UC Berkeley and Fondation Post Universitaire Internationale in Paris. He holds an MA in political science, history and constitutional law. [1]
Ammann is best known for his biography of Marc Rich, the controversial commodities trader and founder of Glencore who received a presidential pardon from U.S. President Bill Clinton. [2] The King of Oil – The Secret Lives of Marc Rich became an international bestseller and was published in nine languages. The book is to be cinematized by Universal Pictures with Matt Damon slated to portray the fugitive billionaire. John Krasinski would be a producer through his Sunday Night Productions. [3]
Ammann's research into unlawful methods of investigation by the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland triggered one of the biggest judicial scandals in the country's recent history and led to the resignation of Attorney General Valentin Roschacher. [4] [5]
In 2010, Ammann was named Swiss Business Journalist of the Year. In 2007 he won the renowned Georg von Holtzbrinck Prize for Business Journalism. In 2006, he was awarded the Swiss Media Prize for Finance Journalism.
Marc Rich was an international commodities trader, financier, and businessman. He founded the commodities company Glencore, and was later indicted in the United States on federal charges of tax evasion, wire fraud, racketeering, and making oil deals with Iran during the Iran hostage crisis. He fled to Switzerland at the time of the indictment and never returned to the United States. He received a widely criticized presidential pardon from President Bill Clinton, on his last day in office; Rich's ex-wife Denise had made large donations to the Democratic Party.
Russian oligarchs are business oligarchs of the former Soviet republics who rapidly accumulated wealth in the 1990s via the Russian privatisation that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The failing Soviet state left the ownership of state assets contested, which allowed for informal deals with former USSR officials as a means to acquire state property. Historian Edward L. Keenan has compared these oligarchs to the system of powerful boyars that emerged in late-medieval Muscovy.
Xstrata plc was an Anglo-Swiss multinational mining company headquartered in Zug, Switzerland and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It was a major producer of coal, copper, nickel, primary vanadium and zinc and the world's largest producer of ferrochrome. It had operations in 19 countries across Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, North America and South America.
Trafigura is a multinational commodity trading company domiciled in Singapore with major regional hubs in Geneva, Houston, Montevideo and Mumbai, founded in 1993. The company trades in base metals and energy. It is the world's largest private metals trader and second-largest oil trader having built or purchased stakes in pipelines, mines, smelters, ports and storage terminals. The company operates through a complex network of over 100 subsidiaries across the world, with main operating offices in Geneva and Singapore.
Pincus Green is an American oil and gas commodities trader. In 1983 Green and his business partner Marc Rich were indicted on charges of tax evasion relating to illegal trading with Iran. However in 2001 Green and Rich received a presidential pardon from president Bill Clinton.
Marc Russell Benioff is an American internet entrepreneur billionaire and philanthropist. Benioff is best known as the co-founder, chairman and CEO of the software company Salesforce, as well as being the owner of Time Magazine since 2018.
Glencore plc is a Swiss multinational commodity trading and mining company with headquarters in Baar, Switzerland. Glencore's oil and gas head office is in London and its registered office is in Saint Helier, Jersey. The current company was created through a merger of Glencore with Xstrata on 2 May 2013. As of 2015, it ranked tenth in the Fortune Global 500 list of the world's largest companies. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Glencore International was ranked as the 484th-largest public company in the world. As of July 2022, it is the world's largest commodity trader.
Ivan Glasenberg is a South African business executive and former chief executive officer of Glencore, one of the world's largest commodity trading and mining companies. He was the company's CEO from 2002 to 2021. Glasenberg has or had citizenship of South Africa and Australia. He became a Swiss citizen in 2011. He is also on the board of mining company Minara Resources Ltd.
Jeff Gerth is an American former investigative reporter for The New York Times who has written lengthy, probing stories that drew both praise and criticism. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for covering the transfer of American satellite-launch technology to China. He broke stories about the Whitewater controversy and the Chinese scientist Wen Ho Lee.
Denise Rich is an American-born Austrian singer-songwriter, socialite, philanthropist and political fundraiser.
Dan Gertler is an Israeli billionaire businessman in natural resources and the founder and president of the DGI group of companies. He has diamond and copper mining interests in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and has invested in iron ore, gold, cobalt, oil, agriculture, and banking. He may also hold citizenship of that country. As of 2022 his fortune was estimated at $1.2 billion by Forbes.
David Hasemyer is an American journalist and author. With Lisa Song and Elizabeth McGowan, he won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and a 2016 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. He graduated, in 1979, from San Diego State University, with a Bachelor's in Journalism. Hasemyer was raised in Moab, Utah.
Alexander Frank Beard is a British billionaire businessman, based in London. He is Chairman and founding shareholder of Adaptogen Capital, a London-based infrastructure firm and a key player in the energy transition space. Established in 2020, the firm is focused on building a portfolio of storage batteries across the UK that will provide stability to the grid and crucial storage capacity as the UK Grid increases the share of renewable energy power generation.
Aristotelis Mistakidis is a Swiss-based Greek metals trader who became a billionaire working for Glencore. He has joint Greek/British citizenship.
Kenneth Paul Vogel is an American journalist and author who currently reports for The New York Times. From 2007 to 2017, he was the founding chief investigative reporter at Politico. In June 2017, he joined the Washington Bureau of The New York Times as a reporter covering conflicts of interest, lobbying, and money in politics.
Uri Singer, is a businessman and film producer. He is the owner and CEO of Passage Pictures, under which he has produced multiple award-winning films.
The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich is a non-fiction book by Swiss investigative journalist Daniel Ammann. The book was initially released on October 13, 2009 by St. Martin's Press. It became an international bestseller and was published in nine languages.
The Paradise Papers are a set of over 13.4 million confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investments that were leaked to the German reporters Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer, from the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. The newspaper shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, and a network of more than 380 journalists. Some of the details were made public on 5 November 2017 and stories are still being released.
Sunday Night Productions is an American film and television production company founded by John Krasinski and Allyson Seeger in 2013. It is known for producing the television series Lip Sync Battle, Dream Corp LLC and Jack Ryan, the YouTube streaming news show Some Good News, and the feature-length films The Hollars, A Quiet Place, and A Quiet Place Part II.
Lisa Song is an American journalist and author. She won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, with David Hasemyer and Elizabeth McGowan, for their report on the Kalamazoo River oil spill. She works for ProPublica, reporting on the environment, energy and climate change.