disappointed but not surprised

Years ago, I was with Harold Clough (Clough Engineering). He explained that in business, even when your policy is to be honest, from time to time disagreements arise with a client .....

His advice was : If you beleve you are in the right, take the case to arbitration - you have a good chance of getting 90% of what you believe is due to you. But, if you know you've "fouled up", & have nil chance of winning, then go to Court - the Court is an ass & with it's vagaries, you have a 50/50 chance of winning.

MLS has not been forthcoming with details of how come they spent time & money exploring someone elses tenement, but they apparently believed the tenement was theirs & the Vendor had relinquished all rights - although they were not certain enough of their case to continue exploration even though the Namibian Dept of Mines had invited them to do so ....

It seems, a couple of years back, The Vendor was knocking on MLS's door advising that they were exploring his ground. MLS apparently told him to go away, rather than take the opportunity to come to an agreement.

In retrospect, Harold had the right approach - don't risk Court, arbitrate.