noiprocs mmerd others, page-74

JamesCrawford,

Regarding the consultants departures and their moral and ethical obligations, this is my view.

There is no way, at all, that a reasonably diligent and competent professional geologist and engineer - as Doctor Simon Beams is - could not have formed a view in 3 or 4 years as to the true grade, dimension and nature of the mineralisation at Rocklands. Once you have formed this view, you are faced with a choice to present this view to your client or not.

Ethically, under the codes of the professional societies to which these professionals subscribe, they would be required to disclose this view to their client or be at risk of doing their client a disservice.

Once disclosed, your options would depend on whether or not you believed you could continue to sign off on stock market releases without performing an unethical or unprofessional act under the code of AusIMM, or indeed the JORC Code or ASX/ASIC.

For instance, you form an opinion such that you know the deposit is going to come in below 1% Cu, and go to Wayne McCrae. You say something to the effect that you believe he cannot make a statement about the grade being above 1%.

If Wayne says he must release that information, and wants to mention an exploration target with a grade >1%, you would be ethically compelled to refuse further contracting from him or imperill yourself or indeed be misrepresenting yourself and the information to the stockmarket as far as you would believe at the time. So you would basically be forced to walk on your own principles - and "health reasons" are just a fig leaf.

I'm not saying that's what happened. But that is the kind of ethical dilemma the consultants would be faced with. Indeed, even as a professional geologist working for the company, you'd have to question your involvement eventually if you had to put your name to anything.

Separately, if the company got their consultants to do an internal JORC, and it was significantly different from what the company wanted, the company could attempt a number of tricks to delay it. Like, be forever drilling new holes. Decide to drill vertical holes. Perform QA/QC audits. Etcetera. All of which can delay and mollify consultants because while it is incomplete, it is incomplete and they don't have to lie or walk.

Ethically, the consultants would have been forced to do one of two things when they became aware of the real JORC figures. Either quit. Or reveal the truth.

Quitting doesn't get you into as much hot water.

Now. To answer your question another way: you definitely should phone up the AusIMM and tell them you are disappointed with the standards of professionalism displayed at all levels within the CuDeCo edifice.

The basic fact is, someone, somewhere within the last 4 years, ought to have manned up and forced CDU to release, and been backed up by the AusIMM. The society is a toothless boys club which, in my opinion, shirks its responsibilities to everyone but itself and its clients. It has responsibilities to society beyond having its members walk away. It should, in my opinion, be more proactive with cases like CuDeCo and force embargoes of professional people from using fig leaves and walk-outs to preserve professional integrity in the first instance, but still bring the whole profession into disrepute by collective negligence.

But so, too, should the ASX insist on something more toothy than the current JORC code. That August 2006 resouce used a specific gravity of 3.8 - which is completely ridiculous any which way you cut it. Yet someone signed off on it. Someone was allowed to put it out without disclosing such a bald faced falsity of an assumption - and yet it was still legal and ethical and allowable because the JORC code is a complete travesty.

So, complain to the AusIMM. I would be interested to know how that goes.