Mr. Steinmetz’s business has been investigated in several other countries, including the United States, Romania and Israel. His legal problems began after his group, BSG Resources, defeated Australian mining company Rio Tinto in 2008 for half of its iron ore exploration rights in Guinea, which owns some of the world’s richest deposits. The company sold half of that stake to Brazilian mining giant Vale in a $ 2.5 billion deal.
In 2014, the Guinean government, after a review launched by the democratically elected President Alpha Condé, accused Mr. Steinmetz’s company of corruption, paying millions through a representative to Ms. Touré. The U.S. Department of Justice also investigated Steinmetz’s companies for potential corruption, saying that some of the alleged payments were sent through American banks. He was briefly detained and interrogated by Israeli authorities in 2016 and 2017.
Steinmetz’s company struck a deal with the Guinean government in 2019 to withdraw from the project, but the group remains stuck in legal disputes with Vale and Rio Tinto, who claim to have lost money on the venture.
Ms. Duparc, of the Public Eye, called for “a public judgment” on the practices of mining groups as a whole. In a statement, the group said the allegations against BSG Resources demonstrated how “tax havens can be used to hide questionable – or even illegal – activities in countries with weak governance and regulation”.
Mr. Steinmetz’s family has ties to Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law. In 2017, The New York Times reported that a company that invested money for Steinmetz’s brother and longtime business partner, Daniel, along with his son Raz, partnered with Kushner Companies in dozens of Manhattan apartment buildings. and Jersey City.
Civil society organizations have been lobbying for proposals that would add responsibility to companies based in Switzerland for their actions abroad. One such proposal, which would hold Swiss-based companies responsible for human rights violations and environmental damage by their foreign subsidiaries, failed in a referendum last year.