Rio Tinto boss Jakob Stausholm in tearful apology over bullying claims at the mining giant

Rio Tinto’s chief executive broke into tears as he apologised to two whistleblowers who spent years raising concerns about misconduct at the company, according to a report seen by the Mail.

Jakob Stausholm, who has led the company since 2021, reportedly said that no one ‘ever deserves’ to be victimised and ‘financially ruined’ the way Dr Maurice Duffy, a long-time consultant with the company, and project manager Richard Bowley were by the FTSE 100 miner.

The leaked document makes a series of damning allegations about irregular payments, corruption and bullying at Rio over a number of years.

The company has previously been accused of having a toxic culture, which is a concern for pension funds and major investors who want to make sure their money goes into ethical firms.

Report: Rio chief exec Jakob Stausholm (pictured) reportedly said no one ever deserves to be victimised and ‘financially ruined’ the way Dr Maurice Duffy and Richard Bowley were

Stausholm was brought in to clean up Rio after it blew up two 46,000-year-old sacred sites in Western Australia to expand an iron ore mine.

This triggered worldwide outrage and an Australian parliamentary inquiry, as well as a boardroom clearout that saw former boss Jean-Sebastien Jacques and two other executives leave. 

As Stausholm tried to salvage the company’s reputation he commissioned in 2021 an external review of Rio Tinto’s culture, led by Australian sex discrimination commissioner Elizabeth Broderick. 

It unearthed ‘disturbing’ findings of bullying, sexual harassment, racism and rape.

But the report seen by the Mail that details the whistleblowers’ claims contains a series of separate allegations. It is titled Bad Minds Make Bad Miners.

As part of his wider reconciliation efforts, Stausholm last year invited whistleblowers Duffy and Bowley to meet him at Rio’s headquarters in London.

Between 2017 to 2022 the pair had been ‘escalating issues of serious ethical concern to Rio Tinto’s board, executive leadership and legal officers including the chair of the board, the chief executive officer, head of legal, head of human resources, head of ethics, and the company secretary’.

The document says that Duffy, 66, who provided coaching to executives at Rio Tinto for more than a decade, believes that the company tried to ‘destroy’ his reputation after he cut ties with it in 2017.

It alleges he resigned for a slew of reasons, including misreporting at its sprawling Oyu Tolgoi copper mine in Mongolia was being ignored, while irregular payments as well as bullying and sexism claims were not being investigated.

It claimed that Bowley, 53, who worked on the Oyu Tolgoi project, also had concerns with delays and other problems at the site that he flagged up but were ignored. 

Duffy, the report says, also oversaw coaching for Jacques earlier in his career and concluded that he was ‘a psychopath’.

The report was sent to Mongolian authorities earlier this year.

At Rio’s London office last summer, Stausholm is said to have ‘apologised to Richard Bowley and Maurice Duffy for the mental, economic and reputational pain that the company had caused them’ during Jacques’ tenure.

At one point Stausholm is understood to have ‘shed a tear’ after hearing their experiences, with the chief executive describing the years that they had spent battling the company under Jacques as the ‘darkest period in Rio Tinto’s 150-year history’.

Delays: Rio said last year that its Oyu Tolgoi project in the Gobi Desert was running around 15 months late and would incur extra costs

Both Duffy and Bowley had previously written to Stausholm ‘about their concerns over the many ethical breaches they had witnessed’, the report says.

At a second meeting in August, Stausholm is quoted as saying: ‘No employee ever deserves to be victimised to the extent you [both Bowley and Duffy] were, and no one ever deserves to be financially ruined, their career ending, for telling the truth.’

The company’s head of human resources, James Martin, also apologised for the ‘mental, reputational and economic damage’ that was done to Duffy.

Martin allegedly offered Duffy more work with Rio – but he rejected this offer.

The miner said last year that its Oyu Tolgoi project in the Gobi Desert was running around 15 months late and would incur extra costs. 

It said these were due to ‘geotechnical’ issues. The copper mine is the single largest foreign investment in Mongolia.

Last year Rio agreed to buy out the company that controlled Oyu Tolgoi, Canadian group Turquoise Hill, for £2.6billion.

Duffy confirmed to the Mail that he and Bowley had contributed to a confidential regulator report that was submitted to the Mongolian authorities earlier this year.

A Rio Tinto spokesman said: ‘We have made a clear and public commitment to making lasting changes to strengthen our workplace culture and as part of this continue to encourage current or past employees and contractors with concerns to raise these.

‘All recommendations from the comprehensive external review we commissioned by former Australian sex discrimination commissioner Elizabeth Broderick are being implemented.

‘This is a multi-year journey, and one our management team commits significant personal energy to.’

Referring to the Bad Minds Make Bad Miners report, a spokesman added: ‘Rio Tinto has not seen a copy of the report.

‘Rio Tinto has complied with all disclosure obligations.

‘Many of these claims are subject to ongoing litigation and are without merit.’

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk