Beny Steinmetz

After nearly three decades of delays and litigation production at the giant Simandou iron ore reserves is to start early next year say the main investors (AC Vol 64 No 8 Beny Steinmetz loses appeal in epic Simandou corruption case & Vol 62 No 2 EXCLUSIVE – Inside the Swiss charges against Steinmetz)...

The Swiss appeal court's upholding of a guilty verdict for corruption against mining tycoon Beny Steinmetz nearly ends the decade-long legal fight over Guinea's Simandou iron ore resources the largest and best quality in the world (AC Vol 62 No 2 EXCLUSIVE – Inside the Swiss charges against Steinmetz)...

The scandal at the centre of the Swiss prosecutor's case against Steinmetz focuses on the granting of Blocks 1 & 2 (known as Simandou North) to Beny Steinmetz Group Resources (BSGR)...

In fact all junta members had their own militias at the time and Guilavogui claimed in court that one of those had been trained by the Israeli military in a camp near the border with Sierra Leone paid for by the disgraced tycoon Beny Steinmetz...

And the prosecution of Israeli mining magnate Beny Steinmetz is turning out to be a landmark test of Switzerland's judicial system as much for the legal technicalities and the noises off as for the substance...

The scandal at the heart of the Swiss case against Steinmetz revolves around the granting of half of the world's most important undeveloped iron ore deposits – blocks 1 and 2 of the Simandou mountains in Guinea – to Beny Steinmetz Group Resources in 2008 (AC Vol 62 No 8 Human rights export rights)...

Prosecuting Beny Steinmetz formerly one of the biggest mining magnates in Africa has become a test case for Switzerland's efforts to tackle cases of foreign corruption...

Simandou's blocks 1 and 2 are at the centre of a major international corruption scandal going back to 2008 when the blocks were taken away from Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto and handed to mining magnate Beny Steinmetz's company BSGR...

His appeal is expected to be held in 2022 and news is still pending on the outcome of arbitration cases between the Guinean government and Beny Steinmetz's company BSGR at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Paris similarly focused on the bribery allegations...

Some of Africa's big business players also feature in the leaks including Israeli Beny Steinmetz – handed a five-year jail sentence for corruption by a Swiss court in January – and Zimbabwean Billy Rautenbach both of whom boast close links to governments across the continent (AC Vol 61 No 5 Oil guns and politics & Vol 62 No 3 Steinmetz's empire unravels)...

SMB was also granted blocks 1 and 2 of the Simandou iron ore deposit in 2019 after Beny Steinmetz's BSGR was stripped of the concessions (AC Vol 60 No 24 Iron back on track)...

The villagers had been protesting against the practices of mining company VBG a joint venture between Brazilian iron ore giant Vale and Beny Steinmetz Group Resources (BSGR)...

This could cause difficulties for Davis not just because he wants to get things moving at Zogota but also because the company he heads Niron Metals is tightly linked to BSGR's eponymous former boss Beny Steinmetz (AC Vol 62 No 3 Steinmetz's empire unravels)...

SMB is Guinea's largest bauxite exporter and since November 2019 the owner of Blocks 1 and 2 at the Simandou iron ore project previously in the hands of the convicted Israeli diamond tycoon Beny Steinmetz (AC Vol 60 No 24 Iron back on track Vol 62 No 2 EXCLUSIVE – Inside the Swiss charges against Steinmetz & 62 No 3 Steinmetz's empire unravels)...