The US Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating BHP Billiton's connection to possibly corrupt practices in several of the mining company's former projects, BHP disclosed yesterday in a terse statement.
News of the probe comes as global regulators take an increasingly hard line against corporate wrongdoing. In a charged regulatory environment, BHP, the world's biggest mining company, offered little more in the way of clues about the nature of the SEC probe, which it revealed in an addendum buried at the end of a quarterly exploration report.
Rio Tinto, its nearest rival, saw four employees convicted last month of taking bribes and stealing commercial secrets in China.