RE:Do any of you use Reddit?iamlickzy,
Attached are a short list of hurdles Erin Ventures dealt with to advance to finish line yet to be determined in the next month. No one else responded so I thought I would take a stab at it as I witnessed all the events unfold.
1. Firstly, the Balkan conflict was our first major setback that occurred during the years 1998 and 99.This conflict interrupted and stalled a drilling program in progress at Piskanja. Government in power was the Slobodan Milosevic, old socialist style government.
This flowed into #2.
2.Next up, the Serbian government, during transition from old socialism to democracy impacted our disposition status, the 50-50 Partnership Agreement that Erin Ventuures had with EPS- Elektroprivreda Srbije, the national power supplier for Serbia, owned by the Serbia goverment.
The Ministry surprised us when they announced they wanted to advertise a Concession Tender for Piskanja, when we were locked into a partnership with EPS. Erin Ventures was advised by their legal counsel to apply for the Tender & sue the goverment for neglect of our Partnership Agreement. A total of two Companies bid on the Tender, Erin Ventures and RT.
RT was awarded the Tender, and at that point a lawsuit was immediately initiated for $15M cost losses and for not recognizing our 50-50 Partnership Agreement with EPS. Then came the Arbitration Court hearings, with the witnesses taking the stand presenting their testimony of events.
I would of loved to be a fly on the wall in the courtroom. I'm sure there were alot of flushed faces and embarrassment of the politicians hearing the testimony. We will leave it at that!
Eventually, the final outcome Piskanja would be returned back to the Erin Ventures/EPS where it rightly belonged.
These two items took several years to plow through, and advance the situations to a final outcome. Fortuneately for us we had 3 gold properties that we could drill in Belize, Carolina,USA and east Serbia to advance and preoccupy our time.
Beyond these two items, there was tardiness with endless mining approvals, changing the Mining Act a few times, and just dealing with the bureaucracy in Serbia. Serbia time moves very slow, much slower than our Western pace, but I learned when I was a young lad, when in Rome do as the Roman's do!
A few other items that has been happening with Serbia has been EU entry and lastly shutting down Serbia during the Covid-19 pandemic.
IMO, all these items have created lost time during developing the resource at Piskanja, our jewel property. In my estimate 5-8 years of time has been lost through these events, but it will soon be rewarded. My 20year old bottle of Champane has now been placed on ice, awaiting for this long outcome. I sure and the he** hope the bubbly hasn't turned into vinegar!
What a journey it has been! Cheers!
(bb-99)