sue12 where are u darling., page-2

rio unfazed by cazalys qc Rio unfazed by Cazaly's QC

Michael Vaughan
Tuesday, 1 August 2006

RIO Tinto Iron Ore chief executive Sam Walsh has played down Cazaly Resources' legal advice from Wayne Martin QC over the Shovelanna iron ore tenement dispute, and indicated he would be happy to have his day in court to explain aspects of the case.



Speaking to the media after a speech to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA), Walsh said he would be pleased to have his day in court should Cazaly make good on its threat of calling him to the stand.

"There are lots of aspects that haven't actually been commented on and I would love the opportunity to actually put that on the record if I need to," Walsh said.

"But quite frankly the process will actually be looking at the basis for the minister's advice and the information that was provided to him by his department and the state development office and so on.

"Any opinion or comment that I make [now] is totally irrelevant," he said.

Today Cazaly took the unusual step of releasing a ten-page statement to the ASX outlining legal advice relation to Shovelanna provided by Wayne Martin QC, the current chief justice of the Supreme Court of Western Australia.

In his advice, Martin concluded WA Resources Minister John Bowler's decision to overturn Cazaly's application for the Shovelanna tenement and hand it back to Rio was not based on lawful grounds.

Cazaly opportunistically applied for the tenement on August 29 2005 after Rio mistakenly let its grip on the asset slip by failing to renew its application by the expiry date of August 26.

"In my opinion, those submissions do not provide any ground or basis upon which the minister could lawfully exercise the powers conferred upon him," Martin said in his advice.

Walsh cast doubt on the entire advice, describing it as "fairly old".

"It wasn't based on our actual full submission, which [Cazaly] received after that; it was based on the government's summary of that submission," Walsh said.

"So to an extent, it's advice [based] on half the story.

"I would guess that given that Wayne is now chief justice it would be difficult for them to use it in a hearing anyway, and I guess they just wanted to make sure it gets put before people's attention which I can understand," he said.

Walsh said Rio was reluctant to try the case in the media and he shied away from discussing specific legal aspects of the case, with Cazaly signalling its intention to make an application to the Supreme Court of WA to have the Shovelanna decision overturned later this week.

"Cazaly has inferred that they're going to appeal [but] they haven't yet done it [and] I don't know why they haven't," Walsh said.

"It must be due to the difficulty of putting their case together, that's all that I can imagine."

http://www.miningnews.net/storyview.asp?storyid=62982§ionsource=s0