Kirkland & Ellis is to advise mining company Rio Tinto during the Serious Fraud Office's (SFO) corruption investigation into its activities in the Republic of Guinea.

In a statement today (25 July), the SFO said it would look into "suspected corruption" in the African country by the company, its employees and others associated with it.

Rio Tinto first launched an internal investigation in November last year, after becoming aware of emails that referred to unexplained contractual payments of $10.5m (£8.1m) dating back to 2011.

The payments were made to a consultant on its Simandou iron core project in Guinea.

The company terminated the contract of legal chief Debra Valentine that month, after its internal investigation concluded that she "failed to maintain the standards expected" of her under the company's code of conduct.

Energy and minerals chief executive Alan Davies also saw his contract terminated, with the same reasons cited.

At the time of the terminations, a Rio Tinto spokesperson said: "The board's decision does not pre-judge the course of any external inquiries into this matter. However, the board concluded that the executives failed to maintain the standards expected of them under our global code of conduct."

The company added that it would fully cooperate with any subsequent inquiries.

Following the departure of Valentine, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer City corporate partner Philip Richards was appointed as group executive for legal. He also joined the company's executive committee.

Kirkland declined to comment.