Rio Tinto to review Vale plan for mine

RIO Tinto has been granted access to Brazilian rival Vale’s Guinean iron ore mine plans amid a bitter legal dispute.

RIO Tinto has been granted access to Brazilian rival Vale’s Guinean iron ore mine plans in a bitter legal dispute between the global mining giants, in which Rio has accused Vale of conspiracy and theft of mine tenements.

A New York judge granted Rio’s lawyers free access to Vale’s feasibility study on two ­Simandou project mining blocks that were stripped from Rio by the government in December 2008, leaving Rio with its current two Simandou tenements.

Rio alleges Vale stole information under the guise of becoming a joint venture partner, when it was instead talking with Israeli diamond merchant Beny Steinmetz, who was bribing officials to take the Simandou ground off Rio.

“The feasibility study likely contains proof that Vale and its co-conspirator took and used information from Rio Tinto’s data room,” Rio’s lawyers allege in documents obtained by The Australian.

In the documents, Rio hones in on a previous Vale boast that it had completed its feasibility study in just a year and a half.

“Rio Tinto is entitled to explore how defendants were able to develop their feasibility study and compile the information therein so quickly — an ‘unprecedented accomplishment’ — as they have put it,” Rio’s lawyers said. “It is Rio’s position that such an ‘unprecedented accomplishment’ could not have occurred but for the information Vale stole.”

The unprecedented court case between two mining giants, in which Rio is seeking billions of dollars in damages, is taking place at the same time as a continuing Simandou-related criminal investigation before a New York grand jury that has ­already seen Mr Steinmetz’s ­associate Fred Cilins jailed.

Rio was previously ordered to divulge to Vale confidential takeover defence strategies from BHP Billiton’s failed $US160 billion hostile acquisition attempt of 2007.

In filings in the southern New York district of the US Federal Court, Rio’s anger at Vale has been starkly evident. In the latest documents, filed this month, Rio’s language did not soften when dealing with what it said was Vale’s assertion that the case was one of misappropriation.

“It is a complex RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations) case, chock full of substantiated allegations of lies, deceit, theft, fraud and cover-up, of which Vale played a central role, particularly insofar as it both wrongly took Rio Tinto’s technical information and thereafter used it in connection with its conspiratorial conduct with other parties,” Rio’s lawyers said.