A Shanghai court yesterday rejected the appeals of three former Rio Tinto employees, convicted in March of receiving bribes and commercial espionage, Xinhua news agency reported.
The Higher People’s Court of Shanghai rejected the appeals by Wang Yong (王勇), Ge Minqiang (葛民強) and Liu Caikui (劉才魁). They had admitted receiving kickbacks from steel mills desperate to buy iron ore from Rio Tinto at relatively low prices, but contested the amounts charged by prosecutors.
Two of the three had appealed against the espionage convictions, which were handed down in a closed trial.
Australian citizen Stern Hu (胡士泰), who was tried along with his colleagues, did not appeal.
“According to a final verdict handed down by the Shanghai Higher People’s Court on Monday, the facts affirmed by the Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People’s Court were clear, the convictions and the sentences were appropriate and trial procedures were legal,” Xinhua said.
China has not yet announced the verdict for two Chinese steel executives, Tan Yixin (譚以新) and Wang Hongjiu (王洪九), who were tried behind closed doors for having leaked information regarding the China Iron and Steel Association’s negotiating position during term price talks last year. They were also sentenced on March 29.
A spokeswoman for the Shanghai Intermediate People’s Court refused to reveal those verdicts yesterday.
Rio Tinto is a key supplier of iron ore to China, the world’s biggest steel producer. The company initially rejected the charges against its employees, but after they were convicted dismissed them, saying the crimes were not connected with Rio Tinto’s official business dealings.
Hu, the former manager of Rio Tinto’s China iron ore business, and his three coworkers were detained in July last year during contentious price talks with state-owned steel mills.
The trial in late March found Hu and the others guilty of taking millions of yuan in bribes and improperly obtaining commercial secrets from Chinese steel companies that they used to push up prices that China paid for iron ore imports.
Last year, more than 20 Chinese steel mills paid an extra 1.02 billion yuan (US$149.3 million) for iron ore because of their crimes, the Xinhua report cited the court as saying.
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