missing the obvious

There are plenty of posters here who are of the opinion that the mining convention has run out and it’s the fault of the company.
That’s their opinion & they are entitled to it but I have a different one.
I think that these posters are completely missing the most obvious of points here, which is that it has not expired because it was never officially re-started after AGY lifted the last force majeure in 2005.
I believe that the mining convention is legally very much alive & about to start kicking.

So, what does the announcement actually say & is there any hope of AGY winning the court case.

“Andover Resources NL (“Andover”), a wholly owned subsidiary of Argosy Minerals Inc. has instructed its French legal counsel, Shearman & Sterling LLP to commence arbitral proceedings under the Rules of the International Court of Arbitration of the ICC in Paris against the Government of Burundi to enforce its rights pursuant to the Mining Convention between the parties dated 11 February 1999.
This decision has been taken after extensive, but futile, attempts by Andover to negotiate with the Government of Burundi to continue its work under the Mining Convention, and to obtain the necessary research permit from the Minister of Mines for that purpose.”

Looking at the next few paragraphs, it seems clear (at least to me) that the problem starts from the time the last Force Majeure was lifted by the company in May 2005 because the Minister for mines did not re-issue the appropriate permit to enable AGY to restart the project under the terms of the existing convention.
Any decisions made by the Burundian since the lifting of the last force majeure would therefore appear to be in direct contravention of the original agreement as stated in the next few paragraphs.

“Andover’s efforts to resume work under the Mining Convention followed periods of violence in Burundi which delayed the feasibility study work on the Musongati deposits.
These interruptions constituted periods of Force Majeure which, under the Convention, entitle Andover to extensions and a further opportunity to proceed with exploration and feasibility study work.
This was confirmed in December 2005 by an Inter-Ministerial Commission which was established by the Burundian Government to study the continued validity of the Mining Convention. “

“The Government’s Inter-ministerial Commission comprised members from the offices of the Second Vice President of the Republic, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Co-Operation, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Energy and Mines and Ministry of Finance.
The conclusions reached by the Commission were unequivocal and fully supported Andover’s position, as confirmed by the following excerpts from the Commission’s report:

1. “The current state of affairs is that the Convention is in full force and both parties must accept and fulfill their obligations.
There is no point in the Administration of the Ministry of Energy and Mines to keep boycotting the Convention and turning its back on Andover.
Instead it is time to restore calm and revive the relationship with Andover and relaunch the work programme with renewed vigor.
There is no other choice.”

2. "It would be ill advised for the State to break the Convention as a result of force majeure invocations which appear valid.
Any termination of the Convention must, to the extent possible, strictly follow the Convention’s provisions in terms of justification and procedure. The alternative could expose the State to the risk of paying damages in immense sums that could exceed the value of the mine itself.”

After reading the above paragraphs I believe that the company has had every legal right to expect that the mining convention would be honored and the company has made every reasonable effort to continue to work on the project as it was originally agreed to.

“In the face of the clear recommendations of the Inter-Ministerial Commission, the Minister of Mines first delayed taking any appropriate steps under the Mining Convention to enable Andover to resume work. “

The original mining convention was granted for 36 months and had time left to run after the last force majeure was lifted in May 2005 had the then Minister for mines re-issued the appropriate permit even after they had received the recommendations to do so by the commission set up by to test the validity if the mining convention.

Below are the time periods that AGY was in & out of force majeure up until the last was lifted in May 2005.
The May 2005 date is in my opinion the critical date for everything that has happened since.

Feb 1999 to first force majuere declared April 19 2000. Time passed 14 months
Force majuere lifted March 28 2002 & re-imposed Aug 2002. Time passed 4 months
Undeclared July 2004, re-imposed Aug 2004. Time passed 1 month this being a total of 19 months of the agreement.
This therefore leaves 17 months to run on the original agreement.
I was told that an extention of a further 6 months had already been granted earlier, after one of the previous force majeure’s, so if this is correct then this brings the total time left for the original convention to run to 23 months.
I think someone recently posted a figure similar to this one.

As for the rest of the announcement, I believe as I said previously that any decisions made by the govt since the May 2005 date is in my opinion would be negated by their failure to re-issue the permit in 2005 as they were legally obliged to do under the original agreement & which they chose to ignore.
It would appear from the evidence that the minister delayed taking the appropriate steps back in 2005 so he could get a second opinion with the result below.

“In the face of the clear recommendations of the Inter-Ministerial Commission, the Minister of Mines first delayed taking any appropriate steps under the Mining Convention to enable Andover to resume work.
It has now been revealed that, without notice to Andover, the Government recently proceeded with a second, internal study that has issued recommendations diametrically opposite to those reached by the Inter-Ministerial Commission.

At a meeting of the Council of Ministers held on June 14, 2007, the Minister of Mines presented the findings of the internal study, and recommended termination of the Mining Convention. The minutes of the meeting of the Council of Ministers make no reference to the December 2005 report of the Inter-Ministerial Commission or to the fact that the conclusions of the more recent, internal study flatly contradict the Commission’s earlier recommendations. In this context, with partial information, it appears that the Council of Ministers was persuaded to accept the recommendations of the Minister of Mines.”

I have no knowledge of the legal issues involved here and there are obviously a lot of other issues that we are unaware of but making what I would hope is an intelligent guess based on the little bit of info that has finally & officially came to light in this last announcement I would have to say that we would be in the box seat at the moment.

Some sensible debate with the latest known facts would be more beneficial to all shareholders who are struggling to come to terms with this fiasco and their losses, rather than their continued opinion emphasising the failures & faults of the company & its imminent demise or some poor broker who was at the time doing you a favor and who you would have been pretending was your best mate & who’s arse you would have been kissing if the deal had turned out the way it was supposed to and which I believe will ultimately do.

I am a long term share holder with a large holding as stated in previous posts and I am not selling because I believe that it will be sorted in our favour however long it takes, so good luck to those who are staying in and stuff the rest of you.