The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) outlined a devastating critique of how former Rio Tinto CE Tom Albanese and chief financial director Guy Elliott misled the company’s board and its shareholders in a disastrous $3.7bn investment in a Mozambican coal project that had little to no value. The detailed charges should serve as a warning to other executives disregarding corporate governance. The Financial Times has reported on a probe by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation into the financial dealings by individuals linked to the Gupta family, and their bank accounts and companies in the US. The SEC complaint lodged with a New York court shows the extent to which financial malfeasance will be chased down and prosecuted. Albanese, until recently Vedanta CE, touted the 2011 purchase of the Moatize coal assets from Australia’s Riversdale as a new frontier for hard coking coal and one that would more than double Rio’s exposure to the coal, which fetched a far higher price than...
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