The lawyer for Ossa/Claro submitted the verdict from the BC Court of Appeal in both cases, C2418-2021 and C 1036-2021.
~
Alvaro Vives Martens, attorney in conventional representation of Mr. Felipe Ossa Guzman and Claro & Co., … to this Court I respectfully state:
In Folio 145, I submitted to this lawsuit the document titled
Notice of Application for Leave to Appeal, issued by the Appeals Court of British Columbia, Canada. The Notice of Appeal states that the plaintiffs, Mountainstar Gold Inc. and its former CEO, Mr. Brent Hugo Johnson, appealed against the sanctioning decision issued against them by the British Columbia Securities Commission.
On December 7, 2022, the Appeals Court of British Columbia rejected in its entirety the appeal filed by the plaintiffs against the sanctioning decision of the BCSC. In particular, rejecting the plaintiffs appeal, the BC Court of Appeal ruled:
- That Mr. Felipe Ossa Guzmn had the necessary expertise for the purposes of signing the affidavit questioned in the file, since he was eminently qualified given his academic degrees obtained in Chile and the United Kingdom, his professional experience as a litigator and his participation as an expert in Chilean law before courts of various countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel and Canada. It also explained that Mr. Felipe Ossa accessed, reviewed and described judgments of Chilean courts that were relevant and publicly available, attaching copies of those decisions to his affidavit. In addition, Mr. Felipe Ossa explained the process to obtain mining concessions in Chile and testified that Mr. Lopehanda only presented mining claims, but that they did not become mining concessions.
- That Mr. Jorge Lopehandia lacked the necessary credibility for his testimony to be taken into account by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Specifically, the British Columbia Court of Appeal explained that none of Mr. Jorge Lopehanda's assertions were based on objective evidence. Additionally, the evidence provided by Mr. Jorge Lopehanda referred to issues irrelevant to what the British Columbia Securities and Exchange Commission should determine, that is, whether Mountainstar had made false or misleading statements between 2013 and 2015. In this sense, the Court of Appeals of British Columbia agreed with the BCSC that (a) Mr. Jorge Lopehanda did not have mining rights over the areas covered by the Pascua mine and (b) that Mountainstar was not in the process of actually obtaining the cancellation of the Tesoro and Amarillos 1-3000 mining concessions; and
- That Mr. Brent Johnson did not act diligently in the administration of Mountainstar by trusting the Chilean lawyer of Mr. Jorge Lopehanda. In the view of the British Columbia Court of Appeal, that lawyer was affected by an obvious conflict of interest, because the interest of his client (Mr. Jorge Lopehanda) was to promote the vision or idea that he was the owner of valuable mining rights in the area of Mina Pascua, and not to independently verify if that were true or not.
THEREFORE:
I request the Court: to keep this in mind.
First Addendum: I submit, with citation, a full copy of the decision of the Court of Appeal of British Columbia referred to in the principal part of this presentation and which was issued on December 7, 2022.
If it please the Court: accept the submitted document, with citation.
Second Addendum: I submit, under the notice established in Article 347 of the Code of Civil Procedure, translation of the document offered by the first addendum. The translation has been prepared by Mrs. Camila Guarda Frlich, English-Spanish lawyer and legal translator registered in the list of experts of the Illustrious Court of Appeals of Santiago for the 2022-2023.
If it please the Court: accept the submitted translation, under the notice established in Article 347 of the Code of Civil Procedure.