Rio Tinto charged with fraud

WASHINGTON, DC, October 18, 2017 – Rio Tinto’s former CFO has stepped down from Shell’s board, international media reported on Wednesday, hours after the mining company was charged with fraud in the USA.

Former Rio Tinto CEO Thomas Albanese and former CFO Guy Elliott, alongside the company itself, were indicted by the US Securities and Exchange Commission in a case linked to coal assets in Mozambique that were bought for USD 3.7 billion in 2011 and later sold for USD 50 million.

“Rio Tinto raised USD 5.5 billion from US investors, approximately USD 3 billion of which was raised after May 2012, when executives at Rio Tinto Coal Mozambique had already told Albanese and Elliott that the subsidiary was likely worth negative USD 680 million,” the commission said in a statement.

Also on Tuesday, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority agreed on a GBP 27-million settlement with Rio Tinto over the case, Reuters reported.

“There is no truth in any of these charges,” Albanese said in a statement cited by the agency.

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