Rio Sacks Senior Executives Over $10.5m Guinea Payments

SYDNEY, , (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 17th Nov, 2016 ) - Global miner Rio Tinto Thursday fired two senior executives after an internal probe into US$10.5 million in payments linked to the world's biggest untapped iron-ore deposit in Guinea.

The Anglo-Australian firm last week said it had launched an investigation and notified American, British and Australian regulatory authorities. It did so after becoming aware in August of email correspondence from 2011 relating to the payments "made to a consultant providing advisory services" for the massive Simandou iron ore project.

Rio last month announced the sale of its 46.6 percent holding to Chinalco, which previously held a 41.3 percent stake. One of the executives, energy and minerals head Alan Davies, who was accountable for Simandou in 2011, was suspended last week while legal affairs chief Debra Valentine stepped down.

"The board's decision does not pre-judge the course of any external enquiries into this matter," Rio said in a statement in announcing they had been sacked. "However, the board concluded that the executives failed to maintain the standards expected of them under our global code of conduct." It gave no further details and Davies said his sacking was a "great surprise".

"There are no grounds for the termination of my employment... My rights are fully reserved, and I have been left with no option but to take the strongest possible legal action in response," he said, according to The Australian Financial Review. Shares in Rio were trading 0.88 percent higher at Aus$57.44 in Sydney on Thursday.