Jim Armitage: It’s time for this mining giant to take an ethical stand

Once could be an accident; twice feels like a habit.

For the second time almost within a week, Rio Tinto has slipped out embarrassing disclosures about its potential bribery scandal at times the media, regulators and policymakers were looking elsewhere.

First, it chose the morning of Donald Trump’s election victory to reveal it had suspended a senior executive and alerted law enforcement about dodgy-looking payments.

Last night — long after newsroom deadlines in London — it slipped out the announcement that the honcho in question — Alan Davies — had been sacked.

Rio will argue that the timings were mere coincidence; in a fast-developing crisis, events happen at inconvenient hours.

But as the FT reports today, this is a scandal that first came to light more than a year ago. The company’s lawyers and rivals seem to have known, so it beggars belief that management didn’t.

The mishandling of this scandal isn’t just in the dark arts of “news management”. It’s also about the message “wriggling Rio” is sending to staff and partners.

Rio is the highest-profile blue-chip miner operating in some of the most corruption-prone parts of the planet.

As such, it has a duty to be seen as the gold standard of good conduct.

Yet nowhere in this affair has there been a clear statement from chief executive Jean-Sébastien Jacques deploring corruption and declaring he’ll root it out wherever he finds it.

Instead, last night, he just gave a bland endorsement of Davies’ replacement.

Sure, the lawyers will have crawled over every point and comma and urged the company not to be brave. But, especially given that they also fired their head of legal affairs last night, Rio should realise lawyers are there to advise, not dictate.

So, come on, J-S: take a stand.

Traders are in clover

Dwarfs, strippers, Cristal waitresses, brace yourselves. The City’s traders are back in clover. For all the liberal handwringing over Brexit and Trump, they’ve been brilliant for the boys in the dealing rooms.

Yesterday, Michael Spencer declared the Trump Bump meant boom, boom, boom for the lads at Icap.

Today, Close Brothers says its brokers at Winterfloods have been ’avin’ it large since July.

Volatility, they declare, is great for business. Investors are taking risks again. Wall Street’s banks report the same, and, hey, bonus time is around the corner.

Grumpier Londoners will begrudge the return of City boys spraying Dompers round our clubs and pubs. They shouldn’t. After years of gloom, it’ll be fun to have them back. For a while.