June 3, 2019 - The case was dismissed.

October 30, 2018 - A motion to dismiss the amended complaint was filed.

September 25, 2018 - An amended complaint was filed.

October 23, 2017 - An investor in shares of Rio Tinto plc (ADR) (NYSE:RIO) filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York over alleged violations of Federal Securities Laws by Rio Tinto plc in connection with certain allegedly false and misleading statements made between October 23, 2012 and February 15, 2013.

During August 2011, Rio Tinto plc (completed its purchase of certain coal assets in Mozambique for approximately $3.7 billion (net of cash acquired at acquisition). This business became known as Rio Tinto Coal Mozambique, or “RTCM.”

According to the complaint the plaintiff alleges on behalf of purchasers of Rio Tinto plc (ADR) (NYSE:RIO) common shares between October 23, 2012 and February 15, 2013, that the defendants violated Federal Securities Laws. More specifically, the plaintiff claims alleges that within months of the purchase, now-former senior executives knew of material problems adversely affecting RTCM’s multi-billion dollar publicly reported valuation that as time passed, the same senior executives knew of additional problems and events that, under applicable accounting rules, required an impairment analysis of RTCM and reductions in its reported valuation, that instead of timely performing the impairment analysis, these executives thwarted it and continued to tout RTCM’s value to investors, that when a concerned employee outside the normal financial control function discovered or suspected the senior executives concealed RTCM’s negative valuation from Rio Tinto’s Board of Directors, he bypassed them and directly alerted the Chairman, who ordered an investigation into RTCM’s true value, that on January 15, 2013, less than a year and a half after the purchase, the Board determined RTCM was severely impaired and should be written down by billions of dollars to $611 million, and that the impact of this writedown was reported to investors in Rio Tinto’s financial report on Form 6-K filed with the SEC on February 15, 2013.