Hearing date set for October in Rio Tinto class action lawsuit over Bougainville mine
Over 4,500 claimants are now seeking compensation over what they say is historical mismanagement of the massive Panguna copper mine in Papua New Guinea.
First Quantum Minerals said on Tuesday that Jiangxi Copper will have the right to nominate one person to the Canadian miner’s board as the company looks to keep its biggest shareholder at arm’s length.
The company announced it has entered into a new shareholder rights agreement (SRA) with Jiangxi which has agreed to a customary standstill restriction. It will prohibit the Chinese miner from acquiring shares of the company while the SRA is in effect and for six months after that.
Jiangxi has also agreed that it will not dispose of its shares under a block deal and will not withhold its vote on the director nominees proposed by company management or oppose any other decisions taken by the miner’s board, unless it relates to the acquisition of First Quantum shares by a third party.
Jiangxi owned an 18.5% stake in First Quantum as of March 2024, according to a regulatory filing in Canada.
Jiangxi has been one of the key financial supporters of First Quantum, but relations between the two companies have been chilly since 2019. That was when Jiangxi attempted to gather a majority stake in First Quantum, pushing the Canadian miner to adopt a poison pill to ward off a potential takeover by Jiangxi.
(By Vallari Srivastava and Divya Rajagopal; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Matthew Lewis)
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