[miningmx] — CHILEAN prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation into Anglo
American’s sale of a 24.5% stake in a local subsidiary to Japan’s Mitsubishi, according
to the prosecutor’s office Fiscalia Nacional.
The probe aims to uncover whether the $5.39bn deal, which was closed last
November, is a simulated deal. This follows a complaint made by Raimundo Espinoza,
President of Chile’s Copper Workers’ Federation ‒ the main union organisation at
state copper firm, Codelco.
Espinoza, who also represents the workforce on the copper miner’s board of
directors, said he and others feared the deal was nothing more than an illusion aimed
to prevent Codelco ‒ the world’s leading producer of copper ‒ from exercising a
historic option over 49% of the shares in Anglo American Sur.
“[The deal] requires investigation, among other reasons, for being one of the largest
commercial operations in Chile’s history, which has been surrounded by rather opaque
and doubtful aspects, as well as the bad faith in which Anglo American has acted,”
the union said in filing the complaint.
The Sur subsidiary’s assets include the world-class Los Bronces mine, where Anglo
recently completed a $2.7bn expansion.
Although Anglo American has since been forced by a Chilean court to publish the
contract with Mitsubishi – revealing it contains no right to buy back the shares – a
spokeswoman for Fiscalia Nacional said that the prosecutors are constitutionally
obliged to follow the complaint.
Until charges are brought, the investigation can take as long as prosecutors deem
necessary, she said.
Anglo American and Codelco have been locked in a legal battle since the Chilean firm
announced last October that it planned to exercise the option with financial backing
from Japanese trading house Mitsui.
Anglo claims that the subsequent sale to Mitsubishi means that the option cannot
exercised in full. Both firms are now seeking to annul the respective transactions
through the Chilean courts system.
