I finally learned how to review the complete file of each mining claim; It is not difficult at all, what happens is that before I was looking at the page "Resolutions" of INGEMMET (1), which apparently only contains the collective resolutions and not those issued for individual cases. After selecting the mining claim in the SIDEMCAT form (2), we click on the "magnifying glass" and choose the third tab, "Visualizacion de expedientes mineros" (Visualization of mining records), where it also gives us the option to download the Complete file in pdf format.
On pages 90-93 of the "ocacasa 4" file it is the Presidential Resolution No. 0464-2019-INGEMMET/PE dated 02/20/2019 (3):
Table N ° 1 N ° Unique Code Mining Claim 1 010016705 Chachaconiza 2 010078105 Chachaconiza II 3 010016605 Chapi U 4 010086705 Chapi III 5 010214705 Chapi V 6 010076505 Huarituna 3 7 010071205 Huarituna I 8 010071005 Huarituna II 9 010234805 Huiquiza 3 10 010016505 Triunfador 1 11 010069905 Chapi II 12 010120805 Chilcuno 13 010088805 Colibri I 14 010088905 Colibri II 15 010214605 Corani U2 16 010215005 Ocacasa 4 17 010131005 Porsiaca Estrella 18 010215105 Liocco 19 010111305 Samilio I 20 010182605 Samilio IV 21 010187005 Sillatoco 22 010076905 Tantamaco 6 23 010249305 Tantamaco 7 24 010070205 Tantamaco II 25 010016805 Triunfador 2 26 010069605 Triunfador 3 27 010069205 Triunfador 4 28 010086605 Triunfador 5 29 010069505 Tupuramani 30 010053205 Lincoln XXIX 31 010052905 Lincoln XXVI 32 010117705 Lincoln XXXII Seen the files of formation of title and of right of validity and penalty of the mining claims indicated in Table N ° 1, of Macusani Yellowcake S.A.C .: Considering: That, through the Reports N ° 311-2019-INGEMMET / DDV / T dated 04/02/2019 and N ° 405-2019-INGEMMET/DDV/L dated 02/14/2019 the Directorate of Rights of Validity pointed out that the mining rights indicated in Table No. 1 are found in the list of mining claims whose owners did not comply with the timely payment of the right of validity for 2017, approved by Presidential Resolution No. 115-2017-INGEMMET/PCD of 08/29/2017, published in the official newspaper “El Peruano” on 08/31/2017 and made available on the INGEMMET website; as well as the list of mining claims whose owners have not complied with the timely payment of the right of validity of the year 2018, made available to those managed (companies) on the website of INGEMMET since 10/05/2018; as it appears in the Register of Payments of right of validity and penalty, for which there are no requests referring to the fulfillment of payments, updates or modifications pending to be resolved that distort the non-payment; That, with respect to the aforementioned mining rights, it should be noted that through the Presidential Resolution dated 10/03/2018 it was denied the payment accreditation requested by Macusani Yellowcake S.A.C. through the writings N ° 0100221418D dated 07/02/2018 and N ° 0100221718D dated 07/03/2018; That, through the writings N ° 0110221418D dated 07/02/2018 and N ° 0100221718D dated 07/03/2018, referred above, Macusani Yellowcake S.A.C. requested the payment accreditation of the right of validity of the mining claims indicated in Annex 1 of its writings, which are those mentioned in Table N ° 1, which was indicated in the Report N ° 1924-2018-INGEMMET-DDV/L dated 10/03/2018, which supports the resolution of the Executive Presidency dated 10/03/2018; (...) That Article 59 of the Consolidated Text of the General Mining Law, approved by Supreme Decree No. 014-92-EM, establishes that it produces the expiration of mining claims, petitions and concessions, the non-timely payment of the right of validity or of the penalty, as the case may be, for two consecutive years; Being as reported by the Directorate of Validity Rights, that the cause of expiration has been established and in accordance with Article 66 of the Consolidated Text of the General Mining Law, (...); It is resolved: First article. Declare the expiration of the following mining claims for the non-timely payment of the right of validity for the years 2017 and 2018: (same content as table N ° 1) Second Article. Consent or executed that is the present resolution, send it to the National Superintendence of Public Registries for registration. It is clear then that the INGEMMET did declare expired 32 PLU mining claims, among which are "ocacasa 4", "colibri II" and "tupuramani", from which part of the lithium and uranium resources of the company come. Why are these claims still valid in the database? Because, since the expiration is declared, the INGEMMET has 15 days to notify the company (the notification occurred on March 5), which after that has 15 days to appeal through an "Appeal for review" before the Mining Council (deadline is March 20).
What is the Mining Council? According to the web page of the MINEM (Ministry of Energy and Mines) (4):
As stipulated in the Unified Ordered Text of the General Mining Law, approved by Supreme Decree No. 014-92-EM, the administrative jurisdiction in mining matters, at its highest level within the Public Administration, corresponds to the Mining Council. (...) The Mining Council ultimately resolves all mining matters that are subject to resolutions by the first administrative instance. First instance bodies are: the General Directorate of Mining, the General Directorate of Mining Environmental Affairs, the General Directorate of Mining Concessions and the Headquarters of the National Institute of Concessions and Mining Cadastre, today the Geological Mining Metallurgical Institute. Against the ruling of the Mining Council no appeal is can be made in the administrative channel, but at the request of a party, formulated within seven days of notification of the resolution, any material or numerical error may be corrected or the ruling on points omitted may be extended. It’s permitted the filing of a Contentious Administrative Action against the decision of the Mining Council before the Judicial Power within 3 months following the notification of the Resolution issued. That is, the Company has the option of appealing the INGEMMET resolution before the Mining Council and, if this ruling is unfavorable, it can take the case to the Judicial Power through an "Administrative Contentious Action" ("Accion Contencioso Administrativa" in Spanish)
What can we say about the “
Appeal for review”? According to the Procedures Manual of the Mining Council (5) ...
1. Name of the Procedure. Appeal for review and Requests for Nullity of Acts 2. Purpose. Evaluate the files of the Appeals for Review to determine the confirmation or revocation of the challenged resolution or the nullity it any substantial defect in the procedure exists. In addition, evaluate the requests for nullity from any of the parties and declare founded or unfounded or inappropriate, as appropriate. 3. Legal basis. Supreme Decree No. 014-92-EM, Unified Ordered Text of the General Mining Law, articles 148, 149, 150, 154 and 155. (...) The Mining Council will resolve the files entered as appeals for review or requests for nullification within a period not exceeding 120 working days of receipt of the file by this body. (...) The Council, to resolve the cases submitted for its consideration, will be governed by the special legal provisions. In case of deficiency or obscurity of the Mining Law, Law N ° 27444 - General Law of the General Administrative Procedure, the Civil Procedural Code, the General Principles of Law and other sources of Law will apply. The administrative procedure concludes with the resolution issued in the last administrative instance by the Mining Council. ... and according to the Unified Ordered Text of the General Mining Law (6)
Article 154.- (...) Against resolutions an Appeal for review can be presented, which will be processed in a separate file. Article 155.- (...) The deadlines for filing the appeals indicated in the preceding article shall be: (...) 2) Against the orders and resolutions, within fifteen days following the notification. Has Macusani Yellowcake presented an Appeal for Review against the INGEMMET Resolution that declares 32 of its concessions expired? The answer is no, or at least that is what the last update (a few hours ago) in the INGEMMET database indicates, because when looking for "ocacasa 4" in the SIDEMCAT we now get the message " TRAMITE - CONSENTIMIENTO desde el 18/03/2019" in the "Ubicacion"column. What does this message mean? It means that the "consent" ("consentimiento" in Spanish) is in "process" ("tramite" in Spanish); in legal terms this means that the company has not filed any appeal and therefore the resolution would be final and in two days (when the deadline expires) Public Registries would be notified to update the information of the Public Mining Registry. Will Macusani Yellowcake submit the Review Appeal? Well I assume so, but in the last minutes of the last term!! More seriously, if someone is in contact with Alex please let him know!!
And btw, having Mr. Holmes being mentioned, I would like to comment on the response that he would have given to a certain investor (apparently by mail) and that has been published in ceo.ca and also here. To do this, let me first transcribe literally part of what is stated in Resolution No. 031-2019-MEM/CM dated 09/01/2019, which contains the most complete description of the incident (7):
I. Background 1. By writing No. 01-002214-18-D, dated July 2, 2018, Macusani Yellowcake S.A.C. accredited the payment of the Right of Validity of its thirty-two mining claims (...). In this letter was enclosed the payment vouchers of BBVA Banco Continental No. 6306, 6307, 6308, 6309, 6310, 6311, 6312, 6313, 6314, 6315, 6316, 6317, 6318, 6319, all of them dated July 2 of 2018. 2. In writing No. 01-002217-18-D, dated July 3, 2018, Macusani Yellowcake stated that at the time of filing the No. 01-002214-18-D to prove the payment of the Right of Validity of its thirty-two mining concessions it were not allowed to attach the following payment vouchers: No. 6320, 6321, 6322, 6323, 6324, 6325, 6326 and 6327. The reason given was that said receipts were dated after 4:30 p.m.; however, this is not true, since only receipts Nos. 6326 and 6327 have are dated later. Therefore, it attached the aforementioned receipts and requested to take cognizance of the aforementioned and to give as proof the payment of the Right of Validity of its mining concessions, (...). 3. The Legal Area of the Direction of Validity Rights of the Mining and Metallurgical Geological Institute - INGEMMET - through Report N ° 1924-2018-INGEMMET-DDV I, dated October 3, 2018, evaluated the Writings N ° 01- 002214-18-D and No. 01-002217-18-D; concluding the following: 1. It is not in dispute that the managed (the company) has entered the INGEMMET facilities on July 2, 2018 during office hours; 2. The managed did not have the payment receipts for the Right of Validity until 4:30 pm, when the entrance to the public is no longer allowed. 3. The payment receipts for Right of Validity entered irregularly to the INGEMMET facilities after 4:30 pm. 4. The fact that the managed has entered the facilities of INGEMMET does not imply that thestaff has to wait indefinitely until the company can comply with the requirements of its legal obligations. Allowing events such as what happened would cause the managed to enter the INGEMMET and remain indefinitely in their facilities waiting, from outside, to get the documentation to present and that they not have on business hours. 5. Writting N ° 01-002214-18-D entered the office without the payment receipts and admitting an accreditation like this would lead to the violation of the Impartiality Principle, as a privileged treatment is given to a user and the same treatment is no given to others. 4. The Direction of Rights of Validity of the INGEMMET, by resolution dated October 3, 2018, elevated the acts to the Executive Presidency of the INGEMMET with the corresponding resolution draft. 5. The Executive President of INGEMMET, by resolution dated October 3, 2018, declared inadmissible the accreditation requested by Macusani Yellowcake SAC, by means of Writings No. 01-002214-18-D and No. 01-002217-18-D, and It ordered that the managed be informed that the resolution may only be challenged together with the appealing of the corresponding expiration resolution. It should be noted that normally the last day of term for validity payments is june 30th but in 2018 that day was Saturday, so that’s why in that case the last day of term was july 2nd (Monday). With the above description in mind, I now turn to comment on some of the statements made by our CEO as part of his “simplified version” of what is happening:
I can assure you all of our concessions are in good standing. (...) This is the most important thing to know and what we publicly stated on Friday. No, that is not the most important thing, because if the INGEMMET information is true that statement would cease to be true in less than a week.
What the blog post is referring to is a result of a clerical data entry error by INGEMMET in Peru on 2 of the claims. If what appears in the aforementioned resolution is true, then saying that the incident is the result of a clerical data entry error on the part of INGEMET is a fairly forced interpretation of the facts. Moreover, where does Alex get the number 2? Is he reading this board to stay informed?
The bank reports to the Public Mining Registry (which reflects everything in good standing). This is an overly simplified version of the process. The bank does not report to anyone, it only serves as an intermediary so that the company can deposit the money in the accounts of INGEMMET.
(...) the laws in Peru prevent a lower institution (INGEMMET) from correcting the error without notifying the higher institution (Ministry of Energy and Mines). That's not true. The INGEMMET has not reported any error, what it did was reporting the “request for nullity” (against one of its resolutions) before the MINEM and formulated at the request of Macusani Yellowcake.
I do not want to sound alarmist, but I begin to suspect that Alex does not know what is happening here and therefore he urgently needs an external legal consultant to explain him the real situation of things. In particular, someone should tell him that, if an Appeal for Review is not filed by Macusani Yellowcake within 2 days, PLU not only loses the right to appeal in the administrative instance but also won’t be able to appeal in the judicial instance, since the Resolution would be considered "consented". Why wouldn’t the company's lawyers tell him the truth? Because they have caused the incident, and in addition all the responsibility would fall finally on the general manager, that is, on Alex Holmes.
(1)
https://www.ingemmet.gob.pe/resoluciones (2)
https://www.ingemmet.gob.pe/sidemcat (3)
https://www.ingemmet.gob.pe/igm-sidemcat-portlet/ver-documento?cod_exp=00091785&paginado=0 (4)
https://www.minem.gob.pe/_detalle.php?idSector=19&idTitular=6562&idMenu=sub6561&idCateg=1126 (5)
https://intranet2.minem.gob.pe/web/Transparencia/archivos/MAPRO/MAPRO_CM_-_20171212.pdf (6)
https://www2.congreso.gob.pe/sicr/cendocbib/con3_uibd.nsf/89E200B65DCF6DE9052578C30077AC47/$FILE/DS_014-92-EM.pdf (7)
https://cdn.www.gob.pe/uploads/document/file/288051/RESOLUCION_031-2019-MEM-CM.pdf