ENRC admits inquiry over audit allegations

    Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation has admitted it hired external agencies to investigate allegations of financial irregularities, but added that nothing untoward had been uncovered.The most recent investigation into the transfer of assets between units in Kazakhstan was ordered by the mining giant's audit committee in March.
    
    A spokesman said it was usual for companies to investigate the claims of whistleblowers in such a way. "The audit committee is made up entirely of independent directors and if they had found anything to announce to the market they would have announced it," he said.
    It is also undergoing another investigation into whether the company had broken sanctions by trading with Iran but no evidence for this has been found.
    ENRC has been hit by boardroom wrangling over the past six months, which led to the ousting of two non-executives, Ken Olisa and Sir Richard Sykes, at its last annual meeting. Mr Olisa subsequently described the board as becoming "progressively dysfunctional" in an open resignation letter.
    
    The company also drew the ire of institutional investors last year over a deal in the Democratic Republic of Congo in which it bought a copper mine from a close associate of the country's president, which had earlier been seized off a rival, reports Rowena Mason, London Telegraph.