Rio Tinto’s Simandou lobbyist dies waiting for AFP corruption probe Peter Ker
Rio Tinto’s Simandou lobbyist dies waiting for AFP corruption probe
Peter KerResources reporter
Oct 15, 2025 – 5.00am
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The lobbyist paid nearly $14 million to help Rio Tinto win lucrative African iron ore tenements has died before the Australian Federal Police have been able to complete their investigation into the 14-year-old bribery scandal.
French businessman Francois Polge de Combret’s death, on October 8, was confirmed by his wife, May de Lasteryrie. A veteran of Lazard, UBS and carmaker Renault, de Combret was 84 at the time of his death, which comes barely a month before Rio starts loading the first shipment of iron ore from the Guinean tenements he controversially helped secure for the miner.
Sam Walsh at a Rio Tinto press conference before he resigned in 2016. Robert Shakespeare
In 2016, leaked emails showed the company had paid $US10.5 million, around $13.7 million, to de Combret for assistance in securing tenure over the two tenements which are now Rio’s giant Simandou project.
The email exchange about de Combret’s payment occurred in 2011, and showed the executive in charge of the Simandou project, Alan Davies, seeking permission from Rio’s then iron ore boss Sam Walsh for permission to pay de Combret for his “very unique and unreplaceable” services.
Davies told Walsh that de Combret had used his “closeness” to then Guinea President Alpha Conde to help Rio secure the two tenements at a time when rival miners including Vale and Beny Steinmetz were attempting to seize control of them. “These services were of the most unique nature,” he wrote.
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Walsh asked then Rio chief executive Tom Albanese to decide on the matter, suggesting that some of the funds could be held in escrow until iron ore shipments from Simandou began.
Francois de Combret.
Albanese replied by email saying it was “worth a try”, adding that Walsh should “think about optics to the government of Guinea”.
The emails sparked a crisis for Rio; corruption investigations were launched by regulators in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, while Davies and two other senior Rio executives were fired over the matter.
The Securities Exchange Commission in the US ultimately charged Rio in March 2023 with corruption over the payments to de Combret.
“The consultant, acting as Rio Tinto’s agent, offered and attempted to make an improper payment of at least $822,000 to a Guinean government official in connection with the consultant’s efforts to help Rio Tinto retain its mining rights,” the SEC said in a statement at the time.
“Furthermore, none of the payments to the consultant was accurately reflected in Rio Tinto’s books and records, and the company failed to have sufficient internal accounting controls in place to detect or prevent the misconduct.”
Rio agreed to pay a $US15 million civil penalty to settle with the SEC.
The scandal soured relations between Walsh and Rio, when the company delayed incentive payments owed to the former chief executive until more was known about the regulatory probes. Walsh eventually forced Rio to pay his incentives in 2020 after a formal dispute resolution process.
Rio chairman Dom Barton was not employed by Rio in 2011, but said that at the time of the settlement the company had worked hard to improve its compliance regime in the decade since the Guinean payments.
The Serious Fraud Office in the UK discontinued its investigation into the Guinean scandal in August 2023, but said it would support the AFP in its investigation. In response to questions last month, the AFP said its investigation into the payments was “ongoing” but declined to comment.
Whether de Combret’s death will hamper the investigation is unclear.
Rio’s share of Simandou’s costs is just below $US7 billion, but the total spent by development partners will amount to $US23.2 billion, making it the most expensive mining project under construction in the world today.
Rio softened its guidance for first production from Simandou on Tuesday, in an apparent sign of minor delays on the project.
As recently as July 30, Rio was forecasting that the first shipment from Simandou would leave around November and between 0.5 million and 1 million tonnes of ore would leave Guinea before the end of the year.
That volume guidance was not repeated in Rio’s market update on Tuesday. The miner is expected to ship a minimal amount this year.
Instead of forecasting a first shipment around November, Rio changed its language to say it expected to start loading a vessel that month.
Rio maintained its forecast that the project would take about 30 months to ramp up to full capacity, but noted there could be several months of commissioning work before the 30-month ramp-up period began.
But the tweaked guidance does not change the substantive outlook for the project, which is expected to supply about 120 million tonnes of high-grade ore into seaborne markets by late 2028 or 2029.