A mining company owned by one of Israel’s wealthiest businessmen filed a suit on Friday against the Jewish-American billionaire George Soros, accusing him of a long-running campaign to sabotage his business efforts in the African country of Guinea, Bloomberg reported Saturday.
Whenever there is bad news out of Africa for mining giant Rio Tinto, a powerful group of people gather in the boardroom of the company’s headquarters off St James Square in London.
Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz is suspected of paying tens of millions of dollars as a bribe to the Guinean president.
Swiss prosecutors will question Beny Steinmetz in Geneva amid an inquiry into allegations of bribery involving a $20 billion mining project in the Simandou hills in the west African country of Guinea.
Israel Police said on Thursday that after a week of negotiations they were unable to reach an agreement on the terms of a bond to be deposited by the billionaire Beny Steinmetz to ensure he doesn’t send assets out of the country while he is under investigation.
Beny Steinmetz, owner of mining group BSG Resources, has been released without charge by Israeli police after being held under house arrest in connection with bribery allegations.
Rio Tinto’s Guinean payment scandal has deepened, with bitter rival Beny Steinmetz threatening to sue for billions of dollars in damages after alleging the leaked emails at the centre of the scandal show Rio had a hand in stripping his company of valuable iron ore tenements in the African nation.
A former minister of mines of Guinea, Mahmoud Thiam has told Bloomberg that the head of Rio Tinto’s Guinea operation, Steven Din, offered him a bribe six years ago.
If you want to do business in the west African nation of Guinea it seems there is a good chance you will bump into Francois de Combret.
World number two miner Rio Tinto is exiting the world’s largest mining project, by selling its stake in Guinea’s Simandou iron ore to partner Chinalco, potentially opening up a new path to development for the $20 billion project.