Chinese Court Sets Date for Rio Tinto Verdict

Jakarta Globe, March 25, 2010

Shanghai. The verdict in the high-profile Chinese trial of four employees of mining giant Rio Tinto will be delivered on Monday, the Anglo-Australian company announced on Thursday.

Australian executive Stern Hu and three Chinese staff members were tried this week in a Shanghai court on charges of accepting bribes totaling around $13 million and stealing trade secrets.

All four defendants have pleaded guilty to taking money, and one admitted to commercial espionage, defense lawyers say, although the accused have challenged aspects of the charges.

“Rio Tinto has been advised the verdicts in the trial of the four Shanghai employees will be delivered on March 29, 2010,” the company said in a statement.

The Australian government confirmed the verdict would be delivered on Monday.

Lawyers for the three Chinese defendants — Wang Yong, Liu Caikui and Ge Minqiang — said they had not yet been informed of a date for the verdict.

During the three-day trial in China’s financial center, which ended on Wednesday, the court heard evidence that millions of yuan in bribes had been stuffed into bags and boxes for the accused, according to reports.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the world was watching the trial, which has been widely seen as a test of the rule of law in China and has raised questions about doing business in the world’s third-largest economy.

“It is not just Australia that is watching this trial very closely, but I think the eyes of the world are focused on the way in which this trial is conducted and what happens as a result,” Rudd said.

The court heard that tens of millions of yuan were delivered by hand to Hu and others, according to the state-run National Business Daily.

Canberra has said Hu “made some admissions” in court, without elaborating. Rio, the world’s third-biggest miner, has previously said it was not aware of any wrongdoing by its employees.

The four were arrested in July during contentious iron ore contract talks between top mining companies and the steel industry in China, the world’s largest consumer of the raw material. Those talks eventually collapsed.

Under Chinese law, the toughest sentence for nongovernment officials convicted of accepting bribes is 15 years in prison, according to Wang’s lawyer.

The maximum penalty for stealing commercial secrets is seven years.

Australia will make a “considered statement” at the conclusion of the court proceedings, the Foreign Ministry said.

Agence France-Presse