13 November 2013
Companhia
Mineira de Naburi (“CMdN”)
Injunction
obtained by General Veloso in April 2012 is reinstated in full
The owners of CMdN, General
Veloso and Diogo Cavaco, are pleased to announce that they have been informed
today by the Judicial Tribunal of the City of Maputo that their Injunction,
originally obtained in April 2012, has been reinstated in full.
This means that:
1) The UK judgement
obtained by Pathfinder Minerals on 19 October 2012 was obtained in criminal
breach of the laws of Mozambique
2)
The UK judgement cannot be enforced until the main
case put into court in Mozambique by General Veloso and Diogo Cavaco has been
heard.
On 22 October 2013,
Pathfinder Minerals announced that the Injunction obtained by General Veloso
had been declared void by the First Commercial Section of the Judicial Court of
the City of Maputo. That order has been completely overturned by this new Court decision.
“We are delighted that
Pathfinder Minerals’ attempts to subvert the legal system in Mozambique and to
prevent the case being fairly tried in Mozambique have failed again. We are
confident that the Mozambique courts will find that Pathfinder Minerals never
exercised its option to acquire the shares of CMdN and never paid us for those
shares as it agreed to in 2006 (as the UK court confirmed) and that we are the
rightful owners of the shares of CMdN.
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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 2006.
