As much as i hate to say it some of these comments are pretty telling, add in the the lack of detail in NLI announcements and the sugar coating from management..
Lithium War: Court Cuts Provisional Order of New Lithium Australians
The court decision now known is a setback for the strategy of the New Lithium Australians and comes within three days of the deadline for submitting an exploration license application in Montalegre where an important lithium resource was identified.
The court of Braga decided to extinguish this Monday, December 4, the injunction filed by the Australians of New Lithium against Lusorecursos, linked to the rights of prospecting and future exploitation of lithium in the area of Sepeda, Montalegre.
According to the decision the Business had access to, the Judicial Court of the Region of Braga accepted the claim of Lusorecursos, which called for an end to the action of the Australians, arguing that they submitted the application for an operating license within the deadline - until 7 December - which depleted one of the risks invoked by New Lithium in the process.
The New Lithium injunction against Lusorecursos and Lusorecursos Arg., Argued that the Australian company had - under a contract signed with the Portuguese companies - legitimacy to ask the State to transfer into its hands the position contract in Sepeda. And he added, accusing Lusor of "inertia", that there was an urgency in this transfer - the fact that the current exploration license expires on 7 December and until then the exploitation license has to be applied for or lost the rights over that territory.
The court's ruling nevertheless states that the fact that Lusorecursos has submitted the application for exploitation on its behalf within the time limit has, in the end, removed one of the arguments of the Australians: the fear that the delay in terminating the dispute between the two parties to prevent the submission of the application, thereby causing it irreparable harm. And since Lusorecursos has already submitted the request, the court concludes, Novo Lithium will no longer be able to substitute itself for the Braga company in this procedure - nor under the current prospecting contract, which expires this month.
The court further notes that even if New Lithium wanted to apply for an exploration license on its own, it would have "enormous difficulty", since the Ministry of Economy was never asked to transfer its contractual position in the hands of Lusorecursos, thus lacking the necessary administrative authorization.
With the lead, Lusorecursos is thus left with an open path in order to obtain the definitive exploration license, whose request entered the Directorate General of Energy and Geology (DGEG) less than a month from the extinction of the current prospecting license. To New Lithium, according to the court, the use of judicial or administrative means - "but not provisional or precautionary" - to claim eventual rights or reparation of losses, mentions the decision.
Business contacted New Lithium lawyers but, so far, it was not possible to obtain statements.
The litigation between New Lithium and Lusorecursos, which ended in the courts, has been dragging since the middle of this year. In recent months, the bad relationship between companies has intensified, leading several times to the intervention of GNR, called to Sepeda to identify private security guards allegedly hired by New Lithium to dissuade the entry of third parties in the concession areas, namely members of the Lusorecursos , who claims to hold the prospecting license.
After several months of fieldwork the company said it had identified "the largest lithium resource in a lithium-cesium-tantalum deposit in pegmatite in Europe", material that was later considered suitable for the production of ion battery components lithium. The company expressed its intention to invest between 200 and 400 million dollars by 2019 to create in Montalegre a complex of extraction and processing of lithium compounds for the manufacture of batteries that would create 200 jobs.
Last September, when the controversy was at its height - the local mayor even called the situation "western" - the Government clarified that its only interlocutor is Lusorecursos, "with which the Portuguese State has a duly valid contract" since December 2012. Later, the Secretary of State for Energy, Jorge Seguro Sanches has ensured that the State will act in the "strict defense of the public interest and legality" in this case.
NLI Price at posting:
7.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
(20min delay)