I have said before that I would have loved to pull the arbitration trigger back in 2008. However, I do believe our claim is much more solid because we waited. Here’s why….If we would have based our claim on Minamb’s denial of the permit, then we would be mired down in a technical fight about VZ environmental laws and administrative agency laws….did we strictly comply with all environmental requirements….what was Minamb’s authority and justification for denying the permit…did Minamb have discretion in this area….etc. etc… In other words, we would have to get in the mud with the pigs and argue about minutia, rather than argue the big picture that VZ was simply trying to take the mine back unlawfully.

By waiting (and thereby giving VZ enough rope to hang itself), the big picture is now crystal clear and VZ’s true motives have been revealed. Now, we are not fighting about whether we complied with technical environmental laws or Minamb agency rules. We are now fighting about VZ’s admitted unilateral decision to terminate the MOC based on “Crystallex's lack of activity to progress the Las Cristinas Project for more than one year and... for reasons of opportunity and convenience." (BTW, VZ is now LOCKED in to this reason). In addition, we have the benefit of incorporating VZ’s subsequent decision to nationalize the mining sector which, with 20/20 hindsight, shines a very bright light on why VZ strung us along for years requiring us to pay for its social programs, hospitals, sewers, bonds, etc.. It is clear they were never going to let us mine and they were simply coming up with excuse after excuse to make us go away. When we would not go away, VZ finally had to lay its cards on the table and rescind the contract. We would not have been able to utilize these facts if we would have filed in 2008. Instead, our claim would likely have been another run of the mill claim centered entirely on environmental laws.

Arbitrators are people….generally very smart people. Given the developments since 2008, I think their task has been made much easier and they can now see, very clearly, that VZ is full of BS.