What we know so far
While I conceed that both sides have some good points, I am still not sure how this thing will turn out. I don't think it is as clear cut as people are making it out to be.
1) Is it plausible: People are saying that this is impossible because no one would pay 750 million for a mine. Well the better question is whether or not the mine is worth at least that amount. Of course we already know that it is worth billions, so it is plausible that someone would pay this amount for it. Why not just buy up the cheap shares? Well we know that almost hapf is owned by insiders who can refuse to sell for anything lower. Plus buying up more than 10% will require the buyer to reveal their identity. Why would they want to remain anonymous? Do a google search on bidding wars in mining and you will see why.
2) The mine: There seemed to be issues with people comparing WHY to other mines, claiming that the smarter thing would be to buy up mines with higher grade Mg for example. Of course mining is not as simple as the % grade. It also depends on the chemistry of the rock in the area, the location of the mine relative to where the Magnesium will be used, the infrastructure in place. Again, it is plausible that WHY would be a perfect fit for the buyer based on these factors. Furthermore, ince China produces the majority of the world's magnesium, the buyer might be trying to secure a reliable supply to avoid any future trade issues.
3) The contract: I am not an expert on contracts, and some of you have raised many good points, from the law firm to the wording. The law firm initially said that they didn't know about the deal. Okay - since there are some obvious problems with the contract, the investigation would certainly start by checking out these discrepancies. If the law firm on the contract actually did not represent the buyer/seller then the contract would be invalid. If the names or addresses on the contract did not measure up, then the contract would be invalid. If the terms of the contract were not worded correctly, then it would be invalid. Don't you think the IIROC has checked these obvious leads? Don't you think their lawyers have looked it over to check its validity? If any of these things were false, then the investigation would be easy and we would be unhalted already. The fact that it is taking so long tells me that these obvious issues are not actually issues.
4) Ability to profit: A scam or fraud usually requires some sort of profit to make the risk worth it. So unless either party just likes to scam people for fun we can conclude that someone is profiting. But who? Only a few million shares were traded despite there being 1000% increase in share price. Insiders didn't officially sell. If they did it indirectly then we would know about it by now (look at SJL for example). Even if someone did sell, they did all this for $1 million? The fact that 500k shares were shorted already eats up a portion of the trading, not to mention all the flipping that we were all doing. Now people will say maybe Frank thinks this is real but the buyer is commiting fraud to profit. On the other hand, Frank said that the buyer has been looking at the property for 5 years now. He would certainly have evidence of this for the IIROC to see. If he doesn't then he has lied and the IIROC would know about it. If he is truthful, then why would someone spend 5 years just to write up a fake deal just to make $1 million. Plausible I suppose, but not really making sense as far as successful scams go.
For me there is only one crucial issue. I don't like that the payment in the first month is only 500k. That is too easy to get out of. At the very least the buyer needs to present this money for anyone to take the deal seriously, but at that point there is still a great risk of the deal not going through. The next step would be to at least see that the funds are available. That would be a big deal. It's true that showing the funds doesn't prove that the deal is absolute, but it does show that the buyer has that kind of money and has gone through the trouble of holding it in escrow. Your run of the mill scammers couldn't come up with that kind of money if they tried. If they had that kind of money then they wouldn't be out scamming people to make $1 million in profit.
In short, we really need to wait and see. For me the two key pieces of information are whether the funds have been verified by the IIROC, and whether the 500k has been paid. Even better would be the identity of at least one of the financial backers being released to give some credibility to the deal.
I guess we will find out soon.