Vale plans to form an audit committee following the Brumadinho dam disaster in Brazil last year.
The founding of the committee marks the company’s evolving corporate governance and will directly assist the board of Vale when conducting audits.
The committee will comprise a minimum of three members, two of which have already been appointed, including Vale’s independent board member Isabella Sabodya de Albuquerque and lawyer Luciana Pires Dias.
Vale’s board also plans to change the company’s bylaws and establish a compliance department, including recruiting a chief compliance officer (CCO) who will report directly to the board.
Should this go ahead, the CCO and the wider compliance department will be responsible for managing the whistleblower channel and Vale’s integrity and internal audit procedures.
“The creation of the CCO will reinforce Vale’s risk management model in its third line of defense, supervising the organisation’s corporate integrity and corroborating the compliance with laws, regulations, policies and procedures,” Vale stated in a media release.
“The board of directors leads the search for the professional who will be responsible for the CCO, as well as the professional who will compose the audit committee as a third member.”
Vale will keep the market informed of its recruitment for these positions in due course.
An expert panel put down the cause of the Brumadinho disaster at Vale’s Córrego do Feijão iron ore mine to drainage problems last December.
The high iron content of the heavy tailings waste became stiff and brittle, resulting in high shear stresses in the dam’s slope and causing it to burst.
Vale reported a loss of $US1.6 billion ($2.5 billion) as a result of the incident.