Rio Tinto CEO Jean-Sebastien Jacques, top executives resign over cave blast

Rio Tinto chief executive Jean-Sébastien Jacques will leave the Anglo-Australian mining giant by March over the destruction of Australian Indigenous sacred sites to access iron ore, the company said on Friday.

“Significant stakeholders have expressed concerns about executive accountability for the failings identified,” Rio Tinto said in a statement.

Jacques will step down once a replacement has been appointed or on March 31, whichever happens sooner, the firm said. Executives Chris Salisbury and Simone Niven will leave on December 31.

Rio Tinto announced last month Jacques would lose $3.5 million in bonuses and Salisbury and Niven around $700,000 each over the destruction in May of two rock shelters in Juukan George in Western Australia state that had been inhabited for 46,000 years. Rio Tinto concluded in an internal review last month that there was “no single root cause or error that directly resulted in the destruction of the rock shelters.” 

But internal documents revealed last week that Rio Tinto had engaged a law firm in case the traditional owners, the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people, applied for a court injunction to save the rock shelters The Western Australian government has promised to update Indigenous heritage laws that allowed Rio Tinto to legally destroy the sacred sites.