AFR Articles, page-97

OOO,

Always good to hear from you. May I make a few observations about PE and arbitration.

The PE and arbitration time line (second half of 2019 if I understand correctly) is now more realistic in my view. And if it slipped into 2020 it would not surprise me. Note: I might have been your "mate" referred to in an earlier post who had a discussion with you about the potential time-frame for arbitration. Unfortunately my reservations on speed of the arbitration process look to have merit.

The fact that WPL are talking about the arbitration process shows that they are considering and therefore "concerned" about the issue. And would like it to go away...…… how to do this?

One thing that you should perhaps consider in context of all the shareholder class actions that have been run in Australia over the last decade. Have you ever heard the target company say "we have a hopeless case, please come an sue us? we will pay whatever you want....". Of course not.

The target company's response is always "we think that the class action is frivolous / without merit / will defend it vigorously etc." If this is the case why has no shareholder class action ever been defended at trial with a Judge making a determination? Because the legal issues are never as straight forward as the target company says it is. And the target is faced with management distraction, delays, cost of defending the matter and the chance that the they could lose and have to pay out the entire claim. And the people who did the "bad thing" have probably left the organisation which means it is hard to run a defence. Hence these matters get settled.

Or put it another way. If you are WPL do you settle with FAR, get on with developing the oil field, making great profits for 20 years (or more) or risk three people based in Europe making a decision which means you lose the lot (subject to any indemnification from COP)? And if you are the CEO who has recommend to the Board that you should win arbitration so you should pursue it and then lose = "you're fired".

Your call.

I know which way I would be going...….

Exciting times

Cheers,

BSP
as always, IMO, DYOR, NFA etc.