(Newswire.net — December 27, 2020) — After a three-year hiatus, court proceedings have resumed in a $10 billion fraud and defamation lawsuit that was filed in 2017 in New York against American billionaire George Soros by BSGR, where Beny Steinmetz serves as an advisor. The lawsuit alleges that Soros used “enormous financial clout and influence” to get Guinean politicians to change mining regulations and to take away the rights acquired by BSGR to mine the Simandou iron ore deposit in Guinea.
In November 2020, the Soros legal team filed a motion to dismiss the case. It did so based on the claim that the London Court of Arbitration had decided against BSGR in a lawsuit filed by Vale, a Brazilian mining company. It asserted that any attempt by BSGR to make a case against Soros must be illegitimate since a party cannot again litigate against another party over an issue clearly raised and resolved in a previous proceeding. For its part, the BSGR legal team claims that its lawsuit against Soros is entirely different from its case with Vale.
Background on the Cases
Both cases revolve around disputed mining rights to Simandou, a hill rich with iron ore. The rights had originally been granted to the Rio Tinto mining company, but Guinean officials stripped the rights away from the company in 2008, citing that it was moving forward too slowly. In 2009, BSGR was granted exploration permits for half the deposit. A year after BSGR acquired those exploration rights, it sold 51% of them to Vale. The sale drew criticism from competing mining companies since it afforded BSGR a substantial profit.
In 2010, after promising to purge Guinea of corruption, Alpha Conde was elected the country’s president. Once in office, Conde began examining various areas of government and reviewed the Simandou deal made with BSGR. According to a number of sources, the investigation by Conde was bankrolled by George Soros, whom BSGR claims had an interest in having the rights rescinded from its hands. The firm argues that Soros has had a personal vendetta against Beny Steinmetz since 1998, stemming from what it describes as Soros’s antagonism towards Israel and business dealings in Russia. To bolster its claims, BSGR has cited a recent court case in Sierra Leone against Octea, a BSGR company. Reuters reported that the lawsuit, which was tossed out by a judge on a lack of merit, had been funded by Soros’s Open Society Foundations.
The Dispute with Vale
Vale’s case against BSGR was filed as a consequence of BSGR having lost the rights to Simandou, which in turn led to Vale’s loss of its investment. Vale sued BSGR for misrepresentation, claiming that it had been deceived by BSGR as to the way BSGR obtained the mining rights. In response, BSGR has argued that Vale actually did have suspicions that something in the deal was amiss albeit that those suspicions were incorrect. BSGR has argued further that Vale decided to move forward anyway while intentionally bypassing obligatory Brazilian and US corporate governance procedures. Nevertheless, BSGR still maintains its denial that anything in the deal was actually illegitimate. The case went to arbitration in London, and BSGR was ordered to pay about $2 billion to Vale as compensation.
In the wake of the ruling, BSGR hired Black Cube, an Israeli private intelligence firm, to prove its claim that Vale had suspicions about the Simandou deal prior to making its investment. Black Cube compiled a variety of recordings and emails to support BSGR’s claim in an effort to overturn the London court’s ruling.
It is of interest to note that despite the various legal battles raging between BSGR, Vale, and Soros, the Guinean government itself reconciled with BSGR, thus allowing Beny Steinmetz to return to the country and remain involved in a deal involving the Zogota deposit alongside Sir Mick Davis.