SEC orders Rio Tinto to pay $15M over FCPA violations
By Aaron Nicodemus2023-03-07T19:21:00
U.K.-based mining and minerals company Rio Tinto will pay a $15 million fine to settle charges of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) lodged by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Rio Tinto consented to an SEC order alleging it violated the books and records and internal accounting controls provisions of the Securities Exchange Act when it entered into a scheme with a consultant in 2011 to bribe government officials in Guinea. The company neither admitted nor denied the agency’s findings.
Rio Tinto hired a French investment banker and close friend of a former senior Guinean government official as a consultant to help it retain its mining rights in the Simandou mountain region in Guinea, the SEC stated in a press release Monday. The consultant was hired without a contract and without proper due diligence, the agency said, working for four months on behalf of Rio Tinto before entering into a written agreement on services to be provided.