Companhia
Mineira de Naburi (“CMdN”)
Nick
Trew, CEO of Pathfinder Minerals plc (“Pathfinder Minerals”), admits to Maputo
Court that Pathfinder Minerals has never paid the $9.9m owing to General Veloso
and Diogo Cavaco for the shares of CMdN.
At a preliminary hearing of Proceeding no. 03/2012 regarding Pathfinder
Minerals’ claim to own the shares of CMdN, held in the Commercial Section of
the Judicial Court of Maputo City on 15 May 2013, Nick Trew, the CEO of Pathfinder
Minerals, together with his lawyer Dr Alvaro Pinto Basto of CGA, confirmed under
oath and after sustained questioning to Judge Claudina Mutepua that neither
Pathfinder Minerals, its subsidiary company IM Minerals Limited nor their
associated company International Mercantile Group Limited (controlled by Nick
Trew and Gordon Dickie) had ever paid the $9.9m owing for the shares of CMdN
under the Option Agreement dated 10 February 2006.
Diogo Cavaco said:
“We are pleased that Nick Trew has been forced to admit the truth to
the Mozambique Court that he and his fellow promoters have never honoured the
Option Agreement General Veloso and I signed with them in good faith in
2006. We are hopeful that the Mozambique
courts will now throw out Pathfinder Minerals’ completely unfounded claims to
own the shares of CMdN”
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Note to 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 2006.
