- Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) (RIO -3.8%) plunges nearly 4% as the SEC charged that the miner and its former CEO and CFO tried to hide a multibillion-dollar business failure by inflating the value of coal assets in Mozambique.
- Separately, Rio agreed to pay £27M ($36M) to settle claims by the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority over the Mozambique dealings.
- RBC analyst Tyler Broda expects a settlement with the SEC and thinks the share price likely will not suffer severe harm five years after the alleged activities, "but it will probably cause more noise around Rio’s corporate culture, especially on the back of the Simandou [Guinea] bribery allegations from last year.”
- The two African misadventures also threaten to cast a shadow over the eight-year tenure of Chairman Jan du Plessis, who is due to step down next year.
- The SEC says it will seek to bar former CEO Tom Albanese and former CFO Guy Elliott from serving as officers or directors of a public company; the allegations today forced Elliott, to resign from the board of Royal Dutch Shell (LON:RDSa) (RDS.A, RDS.B).
- Now read: Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A) Chemicals Investor Briefing - Slideshow
Original article