Chairman’s Address to Shareholders – 2018 AGM
Chairman’s Address
2018 Annual General Meeting
The year under review has been an eventful one with, unfortunately, much of the work going on behind the scenes.
I’d just like to take a few minutes to recap where we are at the present time.
As you are all aware the Royal Thai Government refused to renew our metallurgical licence and ordered the closure of the very successful Chatree gold and silver mine in Thailand in May 2016. We were given until December 31, 2016 to cease production.
Whilst the order was specifically aimed at the Chatree mine, it was variously reported that all gold mining in Thailand was to cease by this date. The fact that Chatree was the only operating gold mine in Thailand at the time ensured that nobody could be in any doubt as to the discriminatory intent of this action.
The Government has since introduced as legislation a new Mining Act and a new Gold Policy with even more onerous conditions than previously and seemingly a contradiction of many of the statements made at the time of closure.
During 2017 we commenced international arbitration to recover your company’s losses resulting from expropriation of our assets under the Thailand Australia Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA). During the year the Tribunal has been established, and has agreed to sit in Hong Kong (previously Singapore, but this was changed at the Tribunal’s request in the last few days) under Singapore law jurisdiction and established a timetable for the hearing of the matter. The date for the final hearing has been set for November, 2019.
The matter is subject to confidentiality orders by the Tribunal, so I am unable to provide details of how the matter is proceeding, but I can say that the matter is progressing well towards the hearing date…
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