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Posted by ZiggyZag on the 23rd July :-

Some Cysts are good for you
Good news day today , thanks Dom.
Soured slightly by the attack on Mole ( ignore it mate ) , but suppose everyone is entitled their opinion .

I have always maintained that if we were to come out of Arbi with anything the big hurdle we would next face is FTI liquidation case.
Clearly the taking out the asset from liquidated company looks on the face of it extremely dubious both in the timing so close to liquidation date , and was transaction at fair value ( obviously not ) or both.

So if we are going to agree with Georgians going forward in a realistic and positive outcome for FRR its then over to New York for next hurdle ( sorry Mad don’t believe we have left the ground on hurdle no 7 yet).

Not sure where we are with Georgians agreeing transfer to FRR US , lost track of yes or no on that one . Either way FTI are challenging asset removal .

Question is I suppose if they were to get it back would they be allowed by Georgians to sell the licence on , if not where is the value for them / creditors of liquidated co .

So would FTI need to do a deal with us .

Linked to that some one earlier asked if Liquidation can be stopped . I Think sec 147 of insolvency act allows it to be stopped with the court granting whats called a permanent sist.

If granted the Company would return to control of original directors . Court obviously would have to be convinced of our proposals re creditors being paid in full , putting them ( creditors ) in a strong bargaining position .

Posted by DomFok on the 23rd July :-

Headline- Frontera President - They want politicians in Washington to show that American companies create a good environment, on the other hand, have an aggressive, non-working attitude

Zaza Mamulaishvili, President of the American oil company Frontera, says that none of the statements made by the Minister of Economy of Georgia Natia Turnava regarding Frontera today are true.
Speaking to InterpressNews, Zaza Mamulaishvili called the government's decision, according to which the government will no longer terminate the contract with Frontera, incomprehensible and noted that the government had no right to terminate the contract.
"The government did not have the right to terminate the contract either by contract or by law. So at the time it was a bit unclear what the termination of the contract meant and it is also unclear today, their statement that they are no longer going to commit an illegal act.
As for the fact that Frontera can work in 1% of the area, I do not know what mathematics the Minister uses. The arbitral award did not state that we should have returned 99% of the territory to the state, and we did not. That said, none of the propositions were true. As if we were violating the terms, as if the arbitration had ordered us to reimburse the court costs, this is not true. "The government has continued its usual style of disseminating misinformation," Zaza Mamulaishvili said.
The president of Frontera has linked the government's move to a bill in the US House of Representatives' Appropriations Committee, which calls for democratic development, anti-corruption, foreign investment promotion and other components as assistance to Georgia.
Asked what the current government statement changes in the relationship between the company and the government, the president of Frontera said that in the face of such slanderous statements by the Minister of Economy, it is difficult to say how the company will be able to continue operating effectively.
"Unfortunately, even today we have seen from the rhetoric of the Minister of Economy how the protein has faithfully established our status in relation to the contract. It is hard to imagine that such a hostile attitude towards investments and the company would be enough to make us invest hundreds of millions of dollars again. "They want to show politicians in Washington that they are creating a good environment for American companies, on the other hand, they have an aggressive, non-working attitude," Zaza Mamulaishvili told InterPressNews.

Posted by DomFok on the 23rd July :-

Head of Frontera - "About 70 people did not receive salaries, including me"
Zaza Mamulaishvili, CEO of Frontera Resources Georgia Corporation, says that there were inaccuracies in the statement of the Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development, Natia Turnava, regarding Frontera.

According to him, it is unclear what percentage of the search areas the Minister is talking about.

"It is not clear to us what the Minister was talking about, one percent and 99 percent. We got acquainted with his statement and, unfortunately, none of the statements he made about Frontera are true. So it is difficult to comment on these percentages. For example, there was an inaccuracy when the Minister ordered that all the claims made to us during the arbitration dispute be granted by the court, which is not true; It is as if we have been ordered to pay court costs, and this is a sign that we have lost something that is not true; It is as if we have not fulfilled some obligations for years, nor does it correspond to reality. "Every proposal ordered by the Minister was false, slanderous and misinformative," Zaza Mamulaishvili said.

However, according to him, "Frontera" has never been and is not against the publication of the terms of the contract.

"Before they started arguing against us in arbitration, before that the state fought us for seven years, sometimes it did not give us drilling permits, sometimes it stopped us from exporting, sometimes it froze our account, now we have been forced to fire people. "As for our VAT refund, several tens of millions of GEL have already been accumulated over the years and will not be refunded," said the head of Frontera's Georgian office.
He said the company had returned to the state an area where it did not conduct oil and gas exploration and extraction work.

"If you see that the government is not friendly towards investments, it is not easy to work in such conditions. For the last seven years, we have had to work in such an environment. Had it not been for this, seven years ago we would have greatly increased the scale and not half a billion, maybe five billion investments would have already been made. We returned to the state the territory where we did not carry out oil and gas exploration and extraction works. Where we used to produce, we continue to work as usual, ”said Mamulaishvili.

Posted by Looed on the 23rd July :-

Article from Zaza-friendly Mavari TV
Pt.1

Government extends Frontera's contract amid ruling by The Hague tribunal

The Georgian government, in the wake of the Hague arbitral tribunal's decision, is still extending its contract with Frontera, allowing the company to continue operating in the part of the original contract area where oil production has been under way since the Soviet era.

On January 15, 2018, the Georgian side filed a lawsuit with the Hague Arbitration Court, alleging that Frontera had violated the agreement with the Georgian state. The company, for its part, claimed that its activities were being hampered by the state, causing the company to lose nearly $ 4 billion.

On April 21, the Georgian Oil and Gas Corporation announced that it had won a large part of the dispute with Frontera in the Hague Arbitration Court.

In response, Frontera said in a statement on April 29 that they were satisfied with the decision of the Hague Tribunal, and that the government's public statements were aimed at diverting attention from the outcome of the arbitral award.

The confrontation between Frontera and the Georgian government was accompanied by a number of statements or letters from the country's strategic partner, US senators or high-ranking officials; On May 16, U.S. Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, along with Congressmen Jodi Arrington and Markvin Mullen, wrote letters to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and US Treasury Secretary Stephen Munchin accusing Bidzina Ivanishvili of acting against US interests and Russia. An example of this action in the letter, American lawmakers cited the case of "Frontera".

In the Georgian opposition political spectrum, the letter was seen as an increase in US pressure on Ivanishvili. Representatives of the ruling party responded by saying that Markvin Mullen is a lobbyist for Frontera and that they do not need an international partner to interfere in the country's legal affairs in this way.

Let us remind you that in a letter to Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia on June 2, Frontera wrote about discrimination against American investments and the destruction of the free economic market in Georgia. In the same letter, the company also talks about the activities of the Russian company "Rosneft", which entered Georgia in 2013, which, according to "Frontera", operates in the country without hindrance, despite the violation of Georgian laws and US sanctions.

On June 24, the American company sent another letter to Georgia, urging the Georgian side not to terminate the agreement with Frontera unilaterally, as the Georgian government has no right to do so, according to the decision of the Hague Tribunal.

Posted by Blownitalready on the 23rd July :-

https://formulanews.ge/News/33955
The government will no longer cancel the contract of the American fuel company "Frontera Resources Georgia Corporation", according to the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development.

The Ministry of Economy's contract with Frontera was due to be canceled on July 27. After winning a dispute in the arbitral tribunal, the government notified the American company of the decision to terminate the contract on April 27.

"The Georgian government has decided not to terminate its contract with Frontera and to allow the company to resume operations in the part of the original contract area where oil production has been under way since the Soviet era," the ministry said in a statement.

According to the Ministry, the decision was made to maintain the international reputation of the country in terms of investment environment.

„ It is unequivocally unfortunate for us that someone in America's highly diverse political spectrum has an excuse to use this absolutely routine commercial dispute to the detriment of the strategic relationship between our countries," the ministry said in a statement.

The decision to terminate the contract with Frontera was followed by critical letters from a number of congressmen and senators to the government.

On May 16, six senators and congressmen, including Senator Ted Cruz, wrote a letter to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnunich discussing the harassment of American businesses by the Georgian government.

" Frontera was recently subject to extremely restrictive regulations, and now the company is threatened with expropriation by the Georgian authorities. In 2019, another American company, Conti Group, was expelled from the Anaklia Port construction consortium in exactly the same way, as a result of which the project was suspended.

These complications and disputes are significantly offset by geopolitical implications. "Frontera's energy-generating activities were aimed at making Georgia more stable and energy-independent," the senators and congressmen wrote.

Earlier, on February 12, another congressman, Randy Weber, wrote a critical letter to the Georgian government.

Weber wrote that calls for sanctions had increased in Congress because of problems with Georgia's democratic institutions and government interference with foreign companies.

"The decline in foreign direct investment is not surprising, as such an environment is extremely unfavorable and restrictive for European and American business interests.

They cancel contracts and carry out expropriation attacks on them. "A good example of this from my native Texas is the experience of the oil and gas company, 'Frontera Resource,'" Weber wrote.

The members of the ruling team have been particularly aggressive in their rhetoric towards Frontera over the past year, with some linking statements by congressmen and senators to lobb

Posted by Looed on the 23rd July :-

Following pressure from Washington, Georgia reverses course on U.S. energy company
Pt.1

Following pressure from the U.S., Georgia has reversed its decision to break its contract with an American oil and gas company.

The announcement by the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development framed the decision solely in terms of Georgia’s relations with the U.S., putting in stark relief the influence that Washington wields in Tbilisi.

“Georgia's investment image and close relationship with the United States are important, first and foremost, for the relationship with the American business community, because special attention is always paid to attracting American investment to Georgia,” the ministry said in a July 23 statement.

The Georgian government had terminated its agreement with the Texas-based company, Frontera Resources, in April, after an international arbitration tribunal ruled that the company had breached its contract with the Georgian state energy firm.

Frontera has few defenders in Georgia; it is widely seen across the political spectrum as untrustworthy and unscrupulous. In addition to the breach of contract, the company had not paid workers for many months. Earlier in July, a Frontera employee committed suicide after not having been paid for more than a year.

But Frontera has managed to gain a handful of supporters in the U.S. Congress, who have been undertaking a campaign for several months – since the government decided to pursue arbitration – to cajole Tbilisi into letting the company continue to operate. Members of Congress (many of whom have taken campaign donations from the company) have claimed that the Georgian government’s case against Frontera was the result of Kremlin influence on the ruling Georgian Dream party.

While those claims are unsubstantiated, they appeared to gain some traction in Washington. On July 9, the House Appropriations Committee passed a spending bill that would cut part of the U.S.’s aid package to Georgia by 15 percent if Tbilisi failed to fulfill several demands, including “protecting the rights of foreign businesses to operate free from harassment.”

Georgian Dream officials complained, following the threat of cutting aid, that Frontera had been unduly influencing Washington’s decision-making. “Everyone needs to understand that this is just one group that believes that the issue of Frontera is of special importance and they don’t care that they [Frontera] failed to meet their contract with the state [of Georgia], left many people without jobs and pay,” speaker of parliament Gia Volski said at the time.

The Georgian government is deeply sensitive to how international investors perceive its business environment; the World Bank’s most recent “Doing Business” rankings put the country at seventh place in the world.

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