Rio Tinto staff go to trial in Shanghai15: 50 22/03/2010, Tania Branigan, Australia, business, China, guardian.co.uk, mining, news, Rio Tinto, world n

Rio Tinto staff go to trial in Shanghai15: 50 22/03/2010, Tania Branigan, Australia, business, China, guardian.co.uk, mining, news, Rio Tinto, world news, Guardian Unlimited

Hu Stern Australian and three Chinese employees of the Anglo-Australian mining giant are accused of illegally obtained trade secrets and taking bribes worth millions of pounds

Four executives of Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto has pleaded guilty to accepting bribes as high-profile trial opened in Shanghai this morning, lawyers and a diplomat.

But Australian Stern Hu and three colleagues in China - Liu Caikui, Wang Yong and Ge Minqiang - discusses the enormous sums that had allegedly received, the lawyers said.

The men also face charges of violation of trade secrets, which can be heard tomorrow.

Foreign companies will be closely watching the trial. Lawyers have warned that highlights both the opacity of the Chinese legal system and the potential for gray areas of law.

Tao Wuping, attorney for the defendant Caikui, said the four defendants pleaded guilty. Calls to the lawyer Hu, Duan Qihua, were not answered.

Tom Connor, Australia's Consul General in Shanghai, told reporters that Hu was accused of accepting bribes from 1m yuan (£ 97,800) and $ 790,000 (£ 527,000) and had some income on some of these quantities bribery ".

Wuping Caikui said was accused of receiving 3.7 million yuan in bribes, and added: "Part of the burden should not be a crime."

Advocate Yong Zhang Peihong, said his client had admitted it was "partly culpable". Yong He was accused of taking 70 million yuan in bribes. But Peihong reported $ 9 million profit that the legitimacy of an agreement for iron ore, adding: "There are plenty of reasons to argue against the remaining amount."

Minqiang is believed to be accused of taking about 6.9 million yuan.

The guilty pleas were unexpected. Rio Tinto has repeatedly said that its employees did nothing wrong and had acted properly and ethically at all times.

The trial is scheduled to last three days, but the verdict may come weeks or months after a hearing. Few Chinese end with acquittal processes.

Foreign media were not allowed into the court and Australian diplomats will be excluded from the test sections on the secrets, despite protests from Canberra.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said recently: "China has a different legal system in Australia. China has a different legal system to the world. The world will be watching very closely how they handled the trial."

Last week, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said the trial was on business issues and should not be politicized.

The secrets charge a penalty of up to three years imprisonment, or seven years of "particularly serious" cases.

A lawyer told Reuters that the bribery charge could carry a maximum penalty of 20 years, while others suggested that the maximum term was five years.

The men were arrested in July last year, amid tense negotiations on ore prices last year.

Australian authorities said they were told that Hu was arrested in connection with alleged crimes of state secrets, but the charges never materialized.

His arrest came shortly after Rio withdrew from an agreement of billions of pounds that have been state-owned Chinese group metals Chinalco to increase its participation in the mining giant to 18%.

But last week the two companies signed an agreement to develop an iron ore project in Guinea together.

As the trial started, Rio chief executive Tom Albanese told a conference of officials and business leaders in Beijing: "This is obviously of great concern to us. Respectfully await the outcome of the Chinese judicial process" .

Even stated that China represents nearly a quarter of the income of Rio de Janeiro in 2009, has increased considerably in recent years.

"Only in the last year we reached some difficulties, we are working hard to solve," said Albanese, a copy of the speech released by the company.

A Chinese researcher in a think tank run by the Ministry of Commerce said it had a strong case against the workers of Rio.

Mei Xinyu wrote in Chinese Shanghai Securities News: "The government of Australia and the public need calmly and rationally consider the question: should the government of this waste a lot of political and financial resources to pay the bill for immature stages of some companies and even illegal means?

"What Rio Tinto and Stern, Hu made it completely taboo in any host country."

Rio Tinto
Mining
China
Australia
Tania Branigan


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