Friday, March 29, 2024

Zambian Court halts KCM liquidation, says Vedanta

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The Court of Appeal has stayed hearing by a state-appointed provisional liquidator for splitting up Konkola Copper Mines and selling the assets.

The stay on KCM liquidation proceedings has been granted to allow Vedanta and the Zambian government to proceed to arbitration, Vedanta Resources said in a filing to the Singapore Stock Exchange on Monday.

“Zambian Court of Appeal has granted a stay in respect of any hearing of the merits of the Winding Up Petition and Amended Petition in respect of Konkola Copper Mines plc pending a decision in respect of the arbitration proceedings between Vedanta and ZCCM Investments Holdings plc (ZCCM),” Vedanta said.

“The arbitral tribunal has recently granted a partial final Award in which it has ruled that ZCCM has breached, and is in continuing breach of, the dispute resolution provisions in the shareholders” agreement between amongst others ZCCM, Vedanta and the Government of Zambia,” the company said.

“To cure this breach ZCCM should immediately withdraw the petition and amended Petition and the provisional liquidator should be discharged, it added.

Vedanta Resources held a 79.4 per cent stake in KCM while the Zambian government through ZCCM-IH holds the remaining 20.6 per cent.

Vedanta has been locked in a dispute with the Zambian government since May 2019, when the Zambian government handed control of the mine to a liquidator.

Legal arguments over the case have been heard in both Zambia and South Africa.

Vedanta and Zambia are arbitrating in London over the KCM dispute, which began when the government accused Vedanta of failing to honour licence conditions, including promised investment.

Vedanta has previously denied that KCM broke the terms of its licence.

Provisional Liquidator Milingo Lungu had in December announced a restructuring plan involving splitting KCM into two subsidiary companies — KCM SmelterCo Limited and Konkola Mineral Resources Limited.

14 COMMENTS

  1. Not what foreign investors would like to hear. In hindsight we should have sold to Kafue consortium. Bust as the say sembe does not work

  2. Why did we go this route,losing out on the soaring copper prices for 3yrs only to return to arbitration,awe!

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  3. Why did we go this route?losing out on th soaring copper prices for 3yrs only to start from one abitration,this was unbusinesslike

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  4. You sold Roan Antelope Mine to ‘them’ later you sell KCM to ‘them’ again. That was Mwanawasa SC

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  5. Sata did the same. Grabbed zamtel from lap green now we as taxpayers are owing them millions of dollars. Same thing will happen with vendeta. We the taxpayers will foot the bill which will run into billions.

  6. Logical pathway to resolve KCM saga. The PL was totally misled by PF cadres and opportunistic behaviour of many Zambians at KCM. It was a grave mistake to rely on those cadres to advise Milingo who is a novice at mining. Am sure Vedanta do not want KCM but to ask ZCCM-IH to purchase their nearly 80% shareholding.

    On the other hand Moxico Resources is busy raising money for unknown project in Zambia?!

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  7. We told you that there was proper channels to follow but you believed the dull lawyer Edgar who misled his own ministers then paying off their accrued salaries with taxpayers funds from an unknown source…this is a similar case but in this case Vedanta will sue big for loss of earnings

  8. The mine belongs to Zambians, Vedanta sold billions of dollars every year yet gave government peanut, during MMD which was the then government collected 0.6 percentage mineral royalties, the rest of the monies was taken outside the country, We wouldn’t progress with the 0.6 percent, Zambians wake up sadly hichilema wants to take us back to 0.6percent don’t vote for upnd they have no agenda for Zambia, To the Pf government thank you for giving the mine back to the people of Zambia, How can government generate money without mines! mind you copper is our biggest source of forex therefore it’s foolishness one to suggest that we live and behave as if we have no copper that is none sense..KCM belongs to Zambia full stop.

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  9. Action upon listening to cadres
    Advice .Not consulting for legal
    Repercussions has lead us to This
    Outcome. We failed to eat the fruit
    And we did not let others to give us the fruit.We have been left hanging with no support.

  10. Vendata will not go away because mining in Zambia is the new oil in the Middle East copper prices will continue going up as the world reverts to electric cars , copper will be running cars by electrification.
    There is war raging for copper the whole world is now focusing on copper.
    Don’t allow Vendata to come back and continue cheating and dribbling and not paying of taxes .

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