Companhia
Mineira de Naburi (“CMdN”)
Pathfinder
Minerals’ Statement re UK Court of Appeal
The owners of
CMdN, General Veloso and Diogo Cavaco, note today’s announcement by Pathfinder
Minerals re their appeal to the UK High Court.
As they have already made clear, they withdrew their appeal after Pathfinder
Minerals filed an application to the UK High Court demanding that General
Veloso and Diogo Cavaco:
1.
agree to provide over £1m of security for costs; and
2.
drop their legal proceedings in Mozambique
if they wished to proceed with their
appeal.
Mozambique legal proceedings
Pathfinder Minerals’ has to date obtained an UNCONTESTED judgement in
the UK.
General Veloso and Diogo Cavaco withdrew from the UK legal proceedings
as they were advised:
1.
that jurisdiction for the hearing of the case
brought by Pathfinder Minerals must be in Mozambique
2.
under the Mozambique Civil Code, Pathfinder
Minerals’ claim to own the shares of CMdN will fail.
The UK court explicitly recognized that Pathfinder Minerals has never
exercised its option to acquire shares of CMdN and HAS NEVER PAID FOR THE
SHARES.
General Veloso and Diogo Cavaco are confident that when the claims
brought by Pathfinder Minerals are properly heard on a contested basis in the
Mozambique Court that it will be found that Pathfinder Minerals never paid for
the shares of CMdN, is in breach of all its contractual obligations to the
owners of CMdN and that it does not own any shares of CMdN.
Political process
General Veloso and Diogo Cavaco have kept both the British Government
and the Mozambique Government fully informed of the situation and they are
confident that both Governments fully understand the details of the dispute and
that Pathfinder Minerals has breached its contractual obligations to General
Veloso and Diogo Cavaco.
The Project
Despite the spoiling tactics being deployed by Pathfinder Minerals in
the courts, General Veloso’s company continues to develop the mineral sands
project in Zambezia with the full support of international investors and the
Mozambique Government under the terms of the licence owned by him.
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Notes for Editors:
In the High Court judgement
obtained by Pathfinder Minerals in October 2012, the judge correctly found that
the Share Option Agreement by which Pathfinder Minerals claimed to own shares
of CMdN was indeed an option agreement, under which the option could only be
exercised upon payment of the purchase price of $9.9m, which has not been paid.
Accordingly, under Mozambique law ownership of CMdN shares never passed to Pathfinder
Minerals.
To this day, the promoters of Pathfinder Minerals,
Nick Trew, Gordon Dickie, John McKeon and Tim Baldwin have only ever paid
$100,000 in respect of the Option Agreement entered into in good faith by
General Veloso and Diogo Cavaco in 2005.
The owners remain highly
confident however that while it is likely to take several years for this case
to be finally resolved, they will be successful in defending their rights of
ownership under Mozambique law.
