{"id":1201243,"date":"2020-08-12T11:25:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-12T16:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1032462"},"modified":"2020-08-12T11:25:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-12T16:25:00","slug":"star-diamond-and-rio-tinto-to-face-off-in-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1201243","title":{"rendered":"Star Diamond and Rio Tinto to face off in court"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Canadian court has ruled<\/a> that Star Diamond (TSX: DIAM) has grounds to take to court its legal fight with Rio Tinto (ASX, LON, NYSE: RIO) over their joint Star-Orion South project in north-central Saskatchewan, but said the junior faces an \u201cuphill battle\u201d.<\/p>\n

Judge Grant Currie said the Saskatoon-based company may struggle to prove that Rio Tinto Exploration Canada (RTEC) improperly exercised its options to obtain a majority ownership stake in the proposed diamond mine.<\/p>\n

The legal row involves a 2017 agreement under which Rio Tinto\u2019s subsidiary would spend $75 million in phases to acquire 60% of the Star-Orion South diamond project.<\/p>\n

Star Diamond says that, in November, RTEC informed them that it was exercising all options at once and well ahead of schedule. The junior claims that, by doing that, Rio breached the conditions of the deal and misrepresented the costs involved in the exploration work.<\/p>\n

It also says the global miner used its \u201csignificant financial resources\u201d and \u201cengaged in bad faith predatory practices\u201d with the intention of diluting Star Diamond\u2019s interest in the asset.<\/p>\n

Saskatchewan\u2019s first operational diamond mine<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The fresh ruling crushes Rio\u2019s petition to dismiss its partner\u2019s lawsuit, which it has called \u201cbaseless\u201d, a statement of defence filed earlier this year shows.<\/p>\n

It does, however, favour RTEC in not forcing it to provide Star Diamond with the results of 10 holes drilled in 2019 plus another five holes before setting an annual exploration budget.<\/p>\n

According to court documents, the cost of the proposed 2020 program was $106 million, 40% of which is to be covered by the Canadian miner.<\/p>\n

Located east of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan\u2019s third largest city, Star-Orion is a large, low-grade project that contains high-value diamonds (both large diamonds and rare Type IIa stones).<\/p>\n

Based on to the most recent economic study on the project, Star-Orion has the potential to produce 66 million carats over a 34-year mine life. It would be the province’s first operational diamond mine.<\/p>\n

A trial date has not been set.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Canadian judge ruled the junior has grounds to take to court its legal fight with Rio Tinto over ownership of heir joint Star-Orion South project<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[949,369,4],"tags":[43],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1201243"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1201243"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1201243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1201295,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1201243\/revisions\/1201295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1201243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1201243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1201243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}