Running discussion on SP, page-77848

This is a reply to pow4ade - my reply button isn't working.

"Nope, not a far-fetched scenario at all in an election year. Entirely plausible IMO.

However my concern is whether brown paper bags have already been committed to a certain outcome. In which case no amount of electoral pressure or reputational damage internationally can reverse that outcome.

AddIng to this concern is that Felix doesn’t seem to give a crap about AVZ and the mining code. He's a do nothing blow-hard who has negligently presided over this fiasco with eyes wide open. Which raises the question: why would a leader do that? I fear the worse."
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Regarding the highlighted parts:

We have only 2 options - Felix doesn't take bags or he does.

If he doesn't, then I don't know how to explain his lack of action for the last year in regards to what has been done to AVZ (and us, its shareholders).

If he does take bags, then I have asked myself what I would do if I were him.

If I was approached by the Chinese or their fixers and offered bags in return for my cooperation, I would definitely want all bags *now*, not after my "mission" has been accomplished. If the bags were promised to me *after* I did what they wanted me to do, I would have no guarantee that I would ever see the bags at all. It would have to be an up-front payment.

That's because, being a politician, I could be, for example, assassinated or not re-elected and be out and have no means of forcing the Chinese / their fixers to keep their side of the deal and pay me.

If he did take the bags, and suddenly turned against the Chinese, they could "leak" this information to the press and that would be the end of Felix.
You know, once you take it, they hold you by the b***s.

But what is he gonna do if there is a mounting pressure on him in the next 5 1/2 months to settle the case out of court and grant us the mining licence?

He would have to somehow accomodate the Chinese and give them something to appease them. And what would this be? Some concessions in other mining projects? Some tax breaks? Some construction contracts?

Re: "I fear the worse", I think you mean "the worst"?

The worst for us would be that we get absolutely nothing - no mining licence, no compensation if we won the court case, we all lose everything.

I am very sure this will not happen and we will the court case unless there is WW3 or some large asteroid strucks the Earth and we all perish.

IMO, the DRC, however bad they are, they are still one level up from countries that would simply disregard the court's findings and refuse to pay us billions.

Why?

Because the DRC is too much involved in the Western spehre of influence to do this. And if they did do this and refused to pay, who in their right mind would consider investing in exploration not knowing if they ever get the mining licence once they discover something? I guess the Chinese would and maybe Israelis only.

Here are some links and screenshot/s that may be useful:

(1) The ICSID statistics for Africa (May 2017)

https://icsid.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/publications/Caseload%20Statistics/en/Special%20Issues/ICSID%20Web%20Stats%20Africa%20%28English%29%20June%202017.pdf


(2) Kluwer arbitration blog, a bit old - May 2012 - but still shows where DRC was in terms of being sued by the ICSID (don't wanna screen shoot it because of copyrights)
https://arbitrationblog.kluwerarbitration.com/2012/05/30/africas-track-record-in-icsid-proceedings/

(3)




(4) DRC would have to introduce new laws in order to completely disregard ICSID court's ruling, example of Tanzania below, copyrighted material, so just the link:

https://www.africanlawbusiness.com/news/8816-keeping-it-local-tanzania-curtails-investors-recourse-to-international-arbitration

Cheers