Guys,
There is nothing in the announcement which suggests AVZ has dropped the litigation because of negotiations with the DRC. What was stated is that AVZ has a revised JV and new funding arrangement with CATH and no longer needs to draw upon the Locke Litigation funding facility.
Lets not forget who is funding and running the DRC's legal process. The corrupt Zijin Mining Group and its lawyers who have been collaboratively working with Cominiere. This bunch of criminals don't get a seat at the negotiation table with CATH, AVZ and the DRC Govt.
The restructured partnership with CATH is the window for the DRC to accelerate the development of the Manono project as well as validate AVZ's legal claims and strategy. The DRC wants to build the Mine and get this into production in 2026. This new arrangement is the only way of achieving this. The Litigation process will delay this indefinitely and be enormously costly to the DRC along with the ongoing demise in their reputation.
Also, to cancel the Arbitration process would be to allow Cominiere and the DRC to walk away without any penalties being imposed. At the very least the $Millions they owe us should be an integral part of any negotiation up and until the final date (target date Feb 7) by which the fees are required to be paid for the ICSID Tribunal hearing, scheduled for June.
The Pre completion funding agreement stipulates the Drawdowns are scheduled by end of January. This is for the Litigation process. AVZ and CATH are committed to moving forward with this process if this is needed to get action to take place. The completion of the drawdowns is scheduled in December 2026 as part of the funding agreement. This is firmly stated. There is no compromise on this strategy.
So the fines which have been increasing each day on the DRC, and now amount to in excess of $70M are not going to be