Business
Mozambique Court Update
Mozambique Court Update.
About this update from Rome Resources Plc
[{"type":"text","content":"\n \nRNS Number : 5717U Pathfinder Minerals Plc 08 April 2016 \n\nEmbargoed: 0700hrs 8 April 2016\n \nPathfinder Minerals Plc\n(\"Pathfinder\" or the \"Company\")\nMozambique Court Update\nThe Board of Pathfinder announces that the First Commercial Section of the Judicial Court of the City of Maputo (the \"Maputo Court\") has recently handed down judgment (the \"Maputo Judgment\"), on a preliminary issue raised in one of the various outstanding legal actions pending in Mozambique, declining to hear a challenge brought by the Company's subsidiary, IM Minerals Limited (\"IMM\"), to the validity of a shareholder resolution of Companhia Mineira de Naburi SARL (\"CMDN\"), purportedly passed in May 2009 (the \"May 2009 Resolution\"), further details of which are provided below. \nThe background to the Maputo Judgment is that, as previously announced, there are a number of legal actions pending in the Mozambique courts in which the key issue of the ownership of CMDN by IMM arises. These actions include a challenge by IMM to the May 2009 Resolution. The May 2009 Resolution purports to evidence confirmation by the shareholders of CMDN that an earlier alleged agreement, purportedly made between Jacinto Soares Veloso, J.V. Consultores, Limitada (\"JVC\"), Diogo Cavaco (the \"Defendants\") and CMDN and dated 27 February 2006 (the \"2006 Agreement\"), should apply to mining concession licence 4623C, known as the \"Moebase Licence\", which was then in the process of being acquired from BHP Billiton using funds provided by IMM, as well as to licence 760C.\nAbsurdly, a term of the 2006 Agreement, the authenticity of which Pathfinder strongly disputes, was that it had to be kept secret by the Defendants from the board of CMDN (on penalty of US$1 million) unless and until one of the Defendants ceased to be a director of CMDN. The 2006 Agreement provides, broadly, that CMDN is obliged to transfer licence 760C to JVC in the event that: (a) US$2 million is not paid by CMDN to JVC; or (b) the project is not progressed to export, both within 5 years of the agreement. The 2006 Agreement further absurdly provides that, in that event, the sum of US$100 million will be paid by CMDN to JVC. \nNeither the 2006 Agreement nor the May 2009 Resolution had been disclosed to the Company or to its Directors prior to February 2012, despite rep...