RIO Tinto had not admitted it was guilty of corruption in respect of investigations currently underway into its past dealings in Guinea and Mozambique.
“I want you to know we have not admitted bribery,” Jan du Plessis, outgoing chairman of Rio Tinto is quoted to have said in an article by Bloomberg News. “We’ve not once said we’ve admitted corruption.”
Du Plessis, who was speaking at the group’s annual general meeting in London on April 12, was referring to a probe into a $10.5m payment made by a company director to a consultant working on the Simandou iron ore project in Guinea.
There is also a separate investigation underway by the US Securities and Exchange Commission into a $3bn impairment charge booked on a Mozambique coal deal four years ago.