RE: RE: RE: RE: Hope springs eternal I agree with FastFF. A financially healthier CDE is a more able to take us out at the right price and otherwise makes no difference to RPM. Either way, it can run its business and pay its attorneys.
As for the postponement of the trial date, I'm disappointed in myself as I should have seen it coming, or at least acknowledged it as a possibility. Fast, I would say you're partly right about CDE's lawyers being at the trough, but while they're no doubt billing CDE huge amounts on this file, believe it or not it's not about them continuing to stuff their pieholes until they simply cannot swallow another morsel (à la Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life" / "just one more wafer, sir..."). Rather, as an attorney who has been on several of those types of teams I can assure you that it's mostly about pulling out all the legal and investigative stops and leaving no stone unturned. If this ultimately ends with CDE holding the short end of the stick, CDE's attorneys absolutely, positively do not want it to be because of something they missed. They obviously felt unprepared to go to trial and did the logical thing in requesting the postponement, with the added benefit of knowing that the extra delay, expense and uncertainty worked in their favour. As for the legal fees, given the huge stakes those aren't the priority for CDE -- it will cost what it costs.
As for the court, it knows that this is a "bet the farm" case for both sides and that it has major precedential value for the 130+ year old mining laws regarding the staking and ownership of mineral claims. (This case, once it's in the books, will be taught in mining courses in law schools for decades to come.) So the judge, who relies heavily on counsel for both sides arriving at trial with all their homework completely done, was inclined to grant the adjournment because he wants his decision to be correct on the facts and the law, so that if it's appealed it will not be overturned. Finally, CDE had not asked for a postponement before, which makes any court more inclined to grant such a request.
The length of the adjournment is simply driven by the need for a long trial and the availability of trial dates -- if another 2 week trial scheduled for earlier settles out of court, this trial may fall into that slot and be heard sooner.
All of which obviously adds up to the postponement being a net negative for RPM, in that CDE will be better prepared regardless of whether they talk settlement or go to trial, and CDE can more easily pay its lawyers and experts over the coming year than RPM can. But if RPM now has top quality attorneys (it didn't sound to me initially like they did - Fast, any insights there?), RPM should ultimately prevail. Despite CDE's attorneys protestations to the contrary, this case - despite its high stakes (no pun intended) - seems pretty straightforward
JL