Greek court’s final ruling about Eldorado operations still pending

Shares in Canada’s Eldorado Gold (TSX:ELD) (NYSE:EGO) spiked Monday and were trading around 3.7% higher mid-day in Toronto yesterday, after Reuters reported that Greece’s top administrative court had annulled a government decision that suspended the miner’s operations in the country’s north.

The news were later denied by the court’s president himself (press release in Greek), who said the case was still under review. An Eldorado Gold spokeswoman told MINING.com the company had not received any notification of such decision, and therefore it was unable to comment on the timing or nature of the expected ruling.

That leaves the situation as it was on Friday, when the Vancouver-based company posted results for the third quarter ended September 30. The company said then that all of its employees and contractors were already back at work on the Skouries and Olympias projects, while mining had resumed at Stratoni.

The energy and environment minister halted work at the company’s Skouries mine in August, saying that Eldorado had violated terms of technical studies.

According to documents released by the government, such transgressions concerned a project to build a copper and gold processing plant, including not carrying out certain tests on the flash smelting process proposed for use.

Eldorado appealed to Greece’s top court to overturn that decision, and the result of such action is still pending.

The project has divided residents with supporters and opponents staging multiple demonstrations and, at times, clashing. Eldorado has fought several legal battles as it works to develop the mine.

** The original story, posted on Nov. 2, was based on an incorrect report from Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/02/eurozone-greece-eldorado-gold-idUSA8N12C01N20151102). It has been updated. We thank our readers and Eldorado Gold for the input provided to get this story right.