PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Mining giant Rio Tinto has launched legal action against Brazilian iron-ore giant Vale, Israeli businessman Beny Steinmetz and his company BSG Resources, claiming that the three had conspired to relieve Rio of the northern half of its Simandou mining concession, in Guinea.

Rio Tinto was granted a mining concession over the Simandou project in 2006. The project is host to the world’s largest untapped iron-ore deposits, and provides access to billions of tonnes of high-grade iron-ore.

In documents filed with the US District Court in New York, Rio claimed that following discussions regarding a possible purchase of some of the Simandou assets from Rio, Vale used proprietary information disclosed in the discussions to gain control of the asset by colluding with Steinmetz and the BSG group.

The diversified miner further accused Steinmetz and BSG of bribing Guinean officials, which ultimately resulted in the Guinean government rescinding half of Rio’s Simandou interest in 2008, and reassigning that interest to BSG.

Rio claims that Vale continued its “double dealing” to gain further confidential information on the Simandou project, fraudulently concealing its association with BSG and Steinmetz during this time.

The Simandou negotiations between Vale and Rio ended in June 2009.

Vale subsequently bought a majority interest in BSG’s Guinean subsidiary for $2.5-billion.

Rio said on Thursday that the lawsuit would not include the government of Guinea, as the company had reached a settlement in 2011 that related to the southern concession of the Simandou project.

The $20-billion southern concession was expected to produce about 100-million tonnes a year of iron-ore, one-third the size of Rio’s Pilbara operations, in Australia.

Guinean President Alpha Conde had previously flagged 2015 as the start of production from the Simandou project, which has been delayed by years over a deadlock about how the massive project will be financed and executed.

At the end of April, Vale announced that the Guinean government had revoked the mining licences for the Simandou and Zotoga iron-ore projects, which was held in a joint venture with BSG.

The Brazilian miner told shareholders that the government’s decision was based on fraudulent conduct in connection to the acquisition of the mining licences, but added that the Technical Committee on the Review of Mining Titles and Agreements had found that Vale had not been involved in any fraudulent conduct, and instead placed the blame squarely on BSG shoulders.

At the time of writing, the company had not released a response to Rio’s court action.