Mali frees Resolute executives after $160 million deal

Resolute Mining Ltd. said chief executive officer Terry Holohan and two other employees have been released from detention in Mali, just days after the gold mining company agreed to pay about $160 million to resolve a tax dispute with the government.

The three have now departed the country after being released from the capital, Bamako, where they had been held, the Perth, Australia-based company said in a statement. Holohan and his colleagues were detained more than a week ago after he traveled to the country for meetings with tax and mining authorities.

Their release comes after the company said on Monday it paid an initial settlement of $80 million to the African nation, with an agreement to pay the balance in the coming months from “existing liquidity sources.” The detentions had come as the military rulers of Africa’s third-largest gold producer ratchet up pressure on mining companies to renegotiate contract terms.

The company’s shares closed 5.8% lower in Sydney on Thursday, before it confirmed the release, which was reported earlier by Agence France-Presse.

Mali’s position was that Resolute – which operates the Syama gold mine – should pay the state 100 billion CFA francs ($161 million) to settle a dispute mainly concerning alleged back taxes following a sector-wide audit, people familiar with the matter said last week.

Mali has been under military rule since 2020, when interim leader Colonel Assimi Goita ousted the West African nation’s elected president, citing the previous regime’s failure to repel the Islamist insurgents. Since then, mercenaries from the Kremlin-backed Wagner Group have been deployed to the country, while European forces and a United Nations peacekeeping mission were forced to withdraw.

(By Sybilla Gross)

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