A media release notes that a law firm representing investors in Barrick Gold have filed a class action law suit in New York state saying the company made “false and misleading statements and concealed material information relating to the cost and time-to-production projections for the Company’s Pascua-Lama Project…”
“The Complaint alleges that during the Class Period, Barrick concealed from shareholders that: (1) the costs of bringing Pascua-Lama into production far exceeded any of Barrick’s various publicly presented estimates; (2) Pascua-Lama presented no reasonable expectation of coming into production within any of Barrick’s various publicly presented time horizons; (3) Pascua-Lama’s environmental impact presented significantly greater risks to the Project and the Company than those disclosed by defendants; and (4) as a result, defendants had no reasonable basis for their statements regarding the cost, timing, and production estimates for the Project, or the reserves and earnings guidance for the Company.”
In mid-April, an appeals court in the northern town of Copiapo in Chile halted the construction of the mine citing concentrations of arsenic, aluminum, copper and sulphates in groundwater and rivers in the Atacama desert region near the mine site that exceeded levels deemed acceptable. It is expected that this ruling will be appealed and that the Supreme Court could end up deciding on the project in about a year. Objections to the Pascua Lama mine are also expected to be an issue in the November 2014 presidential elections in Chile. In July 2011, Barrick announced a delay in its target date for initial production at the mine to 2014, but given the court proceedings that start-date could be derailed or delayed until 2015 at the earliest.
Last August, the ethics commissioner in Canada launched an investigation into a May 23, 2012 meeting that included a representative of Barrick Gold, then chief of staff Nigel Wright, and Stephen Harper’s new chief of staff Ray Novak. The meeting was reportedly called because Barrick was concerned that comments made by Harper against Argentina’s claim on the Falkland Islands could negatively impact on the mining company receiving the permits they needed from the Argentine government for the controversial Pascua Lama mine. One year later, the details of that meeting are still not known and the ethics commissioner has failed to release a public report on her investigation of the matter.
For more, please read:
Glancy Binkow & Goldberg LLP Files Securities Class Action Lawsuit Against Barrick Gold Corporation
NEWS: Chile fines Barrick $16 million for Pascua Lama mine violations
NEWS: Chilean court halts Pascua Lama mine
UPDATE: Ethics of PMO meeting with Barrick Gold left unanswered
