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Accusations from journalist Tom Richardson and Boatman to AVZ Minerals on the Manono lithium project?
October 24, 2022
Kiki Kienge
By
Kiki Kienge
Did AVZ Minerals accept the court ruling that would strip it of 15% of the shares in the Manono lithium project?
It is in an article published on October 24, 2022 on the Financial Review, that journalist Tom Richardson would accuse the Australian multinational, AVZ Minerals of having recognized the sentence of the court of the Democratic Republic of Congo of September 20, before the International Court of arbitration on the sale price of 15% in the Manono project with Dathomir of the Chinese citizen Cong Mao Huai says SimonCong, in August 2021 for an amount of US$21 million.
In the article there are accusations revealing that AVZ Minerals of having speculated on the lithium boom on the stock market, declaring that the Manono project was the largest lithium deposit in the world of this mineral, To reach a value of 4, US$5 billion.
Tom Richardson writes in particular, telling the London research company Boatman Capitale this:
“In response, Boatman asked attorneys Grosvenor Law to ask ASX and ASIC to investigate AVZ for allegedly misleading the market and failing to meet its disclosure obligations. »
Remember that Dathomir had signed a 15% sale agreement with AVZ Minerals for an amount of US$21 million. But Cong Mao Huai said SomonCong would have retracted after seeing the increase in value of the Manono project following the publication of the definitive feasibility study by AVZ Minerals.
According to journalist Tom Richardson, AVZ Minerals' acknowledgment of the award that would nullify the sale of 15% of Dathomir, would bring the shareholding in the Manono project to this
:
- AVZ Minerals with 60%
- The Chinese group Zijin with 15%.
- Dathomir with 15%.
- La COMINIERE of the Congolese government with 10%.
But now, after a movement of Congolese NGOs asking the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo H. E. Félix Tshisekedi, the IGF (Inspection Générale des Finances) which works on behalf of the Presidency of the Republic, had published a report on COMINIERE which had been transmitted to the Court of Appeal of Gombe in Kinshasa. This report states that the sale of 15% of COMINIERE sold to the Chinese group ZIJIN was in violation of the provisions of the law of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Therefore illegal, something that will have to be confirmed by the Gombe Court of Appeal.
Sun Kuiyuan, in-house legal counsel for Chinese group Zijin Mining, had said that Zijin Mining is waiting for Zijin Mining's 15% stake in the Manono project to be dealt with in the ICC hearing which will be in April 2023, so that the misuse of Avz Minerals is sanctioned.
Recently, unless journalist Tom Richardson and Boatman Capital are unaware of it, in a meeting with the Minister of the portfolio, Adèle Kahinda Mahina in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the representatives of the Chinese group ZIJIN Mining proposed to retrocede the 15% to the Congolese State and not to claim the price attached to it, asking to conclude a new partnership in the thermal baths to be defined with the Congolese government. This follows the report of the IGF (Inspection Générale des Finances), which in reality would cancel the purchase of 15 of ZIJING from COMINIERE, giving reason to AVZ Minerals which would keep the 75% in the Manono project.