counsel for the minister and rio relied heavily on hansard re the amendments which dealt with pancon a blackmail pl put in the middle of the pit that thwarted the just expired ml they rung up and said give us 1.5m they couldnt mine it unless it was with choppers. 100's of workers stood down.
They also relied on concept nominees re the 79 letter and counsel for RIO did more so saying the state had a moral perhaps not a legal obligation and concept nominees was not alegal obligation which is not correct, in that case decided only by a commisssioner of the SC the state had a current legal obligation under the state agreement but it was at the least a contingent obligation but nevertheless in existence and in effect could have been sued upon by the company. I would wish rio all the best in attempting an action based on the 1979 letter against the state govt
FYI it has been strongly argued and quite possibly successfully that the renewals granted by DOIR to RIO are unlawful which put a whole new aspect to the case. Anyway milly sit and wait and cogitate
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