rights to Simandou and maintain an interest in the Zogota deposit that would be developed by head of Niron Metals, Mick Davis. Rio Tinto then filed suit against Steinmetz, BSGR and Vale alleging that they had devised a RICO scheme to steal "valuable mining rights" held by Rio Tinto. Steinmetz subsequently hired former FBI director Louis Freeh, defense attorney Alan Dershowitz, and law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, as part of his defense team. In November 2015, Rio Tinto's RICO lawsuit against BSGR was dismissed, with U.S. District Judge Richard Berman ruling that Rio exceeded the statute of limitations when filing their claim against BSGR in 2014 and that the company failed to identify a pattern of racketeering activity by the defendants. In mid-November 2016, Alan Davies, head of the Rio Tinto department responsible for Simandou, was suspended due to an investigation into the lawfulness of Rio Tinto's payment to Francois de Combert, former managing partner at Lazard and personal adviser to the president of Guinea. On 1 December 2016, France 24 aired recordings from 2012 that it claimed were conversations between Francois de Combret and unnamed people involved in negotiations over the future of Simandou. In December 2016, Steinmetz was mistakenly arrested on suspicion of money laundering and bribery charges following an investigation carried out by Israeli, American, Swiss, and Guinean authorities in coordination with the OECD. He was placed under house arrest in Israel on 19 December 2016, due to accusations that he paid tens of millions of dollars to senior public officials in Guinea to advance his businesses, specifically in connection with BSGR's purchase of Simandou. Steinmetz was released without charge the following month. In April 2017, BSGR filed a suit against American billionaire George Soros in U.S. federal court in New York, claiming he had engaged in a lengthy effort to defame the company and sabotage its business in Simandou and around the world. In 2021, Steinmetz was convicted by a Geneva court of bribery and forging documents to gain mining rights in Guinea and was sentenced to five years in prison and a fine of $50 million. Romania On 10 March 2016, Steinmetz was indicted in absentia by the Romanian National Anticorruption Directorate, on charges of the unlawful recovery of Paul-Philippe Hohenzollern's inheritance. Two other Israelis and he were on trial "in several cases involving high-ranking dignitaries in Romania." In February 2018, a