Mineral Resources Branch - Final Decision Letter VGCX Management hired an expert consultant who worked with them and the Mineral Resources Branch to review this matter and create a detailed breakdown of all the costs. If VGCX had concerns with a particular line item, decision or costs they had the opportunity to discuss it with the Mineral Resources Branch which is infact what led to the Mineral Resources Branch's final (and what I see as reasonable) decision. This is how negotiations between governemnt and nusiness should work.
The Water Board also hired their own expert consultant to apparently advise the Water Board and so one could reasonably expect that they too created a detailed breakdown of costs or did they just pull their security deposit amount number out of a hat? Yet for whatever reason YWB are refusing to provide this detailed breakdown to VGCX and negotiate reasonable terms.
From reading the Mineral Resource Branch Director's letter (use link below), it clearly states that they consulted with the various parties, including the Yukon Water Board toward making their final decision. So the real question here is, who has the legal authority to set the security deposit conditions and amount, the Mineral Resources Branch Director or the Yukon Water Board made up of volunteers? The answer is that the legislation is not all that clear (at least from what I can tell). It seems the Water Board falls under one Yukon Minister and the Mineral Resources Branch under another Yukon Minister.
Here's the link to the Mineral Resources Branch decision letter:
mml-eg-security-determination-and-reasons-for-decision-june2022.pdf (gov.yk.ca) I'm sure the short sellers won't be happy that this is being posted because they'd like the share price to go lower yet. VGCX requires about $1.5 million dollars a year to obtain and provide the Water Board's $104 million security deposit bond and so VGCX will obviously meet the security bond requirement whether it's $69 million or $104 million. The $1.5 million bond cost to VGCX is less than 2 cents a share based on the current share count.
In my opionion, VGCX is only asking the Water Board for a breakdown of their security deposit assessed costs, how those costs were decided and a chance to rebut each line item where VGCX does not agree. I don't blame them. As a significant shareholder of VGCX shares, I want to know exactly how the Water Board came to their $104 million dollar security decision, broken down line by line and the detail explaining each item. And if they're not willing to do that then that's why there are courts!