(playing Devil's Advocate here) "1) The companies had spent some...

(playing Devil's Advocate here)

"1) The companies had spent some money (not all) but some---KDR has spent millions!!"
But how much did KDR spend during the period that it was required to be spent? i.e. the period in question that has caused the forfeiture question to be asked?

The other question that the minister will probably ask is "was KDR able to do due diligence and should have known that the required exploration expenditure hadn't been made when it bought out the tenement holder?". If they had the opportunity to find out but didn't do sufficient due diligence, or if they did know and basically rolled the dice then...?