RE: Leo Lithium SharesToday 07:32
Rory, I think everything is quite straightforward. I read three mining code releases and all of the explanations around them and thought their rules and purpose was extremely well laid out and made perfect sense. After reading the rules and explanations it is down to individual companies how they move forward. With the gold companies some were arrogant and that has created so much work with this latest 2023 mining code and its practical application. It seems they have modelled some of their mines on the workaround fiddle of taxes and it is costly to undo what they have done.
With Lithium's mining code of 2012 it was a good time if you wanted to start mining lithium the tax breaks offered to encourage new mines were amazing. Furthermore in Mali providing you don't trigger change, normally the old mining code rules remain, each mine does not have to apply the changes, unless it is to close a loophole - for example the movement of (gold) ore. Leo Lithium could simply have just continued with their original plans with no issues and retained all of the tax breaks.
The notion that someone at the mining office said everything was ok, so they just continued with a changed plan with no official documentation covered in an RNS is beyond belief.
Who here would ask your planning officer if an extension on your house would be ok, describe it, then if they think the design is ok just build it, only the occasional lunatic does that and often they are bulldozed. Mining is very similar, submit and approve - officially.
So to get involved with ore at the time that the Mali government and many other governments had a problem was high risk, especially when the audit in Mali raised it as a way mining companies were avoiding taxation.
Then the Morila mine. For the CEO of Leo Lithium to be wanting it to go to global court is ridiculous. The Mali companies are constructed so companies cannot leave a mess and evade responsibility as best as this can be covered in company law. Clearly because of the escrow account there remains a connection between FFX and Leo Lithium - therefore any government would persue an investigation and would look at the details of the release of the escrow account and any other conditions which may create a legal connection. It just appeared a little bit smart and unnecessarily complicated which always gives legal experts the possibility of finding a weakness in the legal armour.
Everything I see points to a company pushing their luck far too much. I have worked in regulated environments of one type or another, you look at the rules, you look at what they are trying to achieve and a common phrase in these environments is take the rules in the spirit they were intended and apply change in the business. The only time to tip into risk is if the entire business survival dictates you go into a grey area. They were doing so well it was a stupid space to step into.
The first RNS yesterday still displays arrogance in m