By Beatrice Oppon
The Commercial Division of the High Court in Accra has restrained Australian-owned mining company Cassius Mining Limited from instituting or pursuing any arbitration outside Ghana under the Prospecting Licence Agreement dated December 28, 2016.
Attorney General Godfred Yeboah Dame filed an application at the Commercial Court for an order to stop the mining company from taking any step in international arbitration proceedings against the government of Ghana until the determination of the arbitration instituted at the Ghana Arbitration Centre in 2018.
Cassius Mining instituted international arbitration against the country at the Permanent Court of Arbitration, claiming about 300 million dollars, which was suspended following objections by the Attorney General.
The company, however, made attempts to resort to other international arbitration forums to pursue its quest to institute international arbitration against Ghana.
The Court held that the Mining company’s resort to international arbitration was a misdirected step.
The Judge, Justice Akua Sarpomaa Amoah, said arbitration agreement like any other contract, is binding by law and enforceable. She said the company cannot, therefore, claim that a proper neutral avenue should be chosen because it involved the government of Ghana. Justice Amoah further held that the balance of convenience also tips in favour of the state because allowing Cassius Mining to resort to international arbitration is not only arbitrary but will incur costs on the taxpayer.
On October 12, 2016, Cassius Mining Limited applied for a prospecting licence from government covering more than 13 Square kilometres of the Gbane Datoko area at Talensi in the Upper East Region which was granted on December 28 2016 for a two-year term.
Clause 21 of the Prospecting Licence Agreement required that any question or dispute regarding the rights, powers, duties, and liabilities of the parties be referred to arbitration in accordance with the Alternative Dispute Resolution Act of Ghana. In view of this, some allegations by Cassius Mining on what it considered to be unlawful and arbitrary actions by the Ghanaian government notified the Attorney General of its referral to arbitration at the Ghana Arbitration Centre. Despite the pendency of the arbitration proceedings and clear provisions of the arbitration provisions under the Prospecting Licence Agreement and Ghana’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Act, Cassius Mining instituted international arbitration proceedings against Ghana in respect of the same subject matter.