Minaurum Gold wins protection against Mexico's mining reform, but battle continues
Mexico-focused mining company Minaurum Gold reported that the federal administrative court approved the injunction request that it presented to protect its Álamos project in Sonora state from the 2023 mining reform.
Despite the court decision to provide the protection, it may not be a final ruling, according to a lawyer consulted by BNamericas.
"We are very pleased with the positive court decision that protects our flagship Alamos silver project,” Darrell Rader, president and CEO of Minaurum, said in a statement. “This ruling ensures that Alamos will continue to be governed by the Mexican Mining Law of 1992 and will not be subject to the uncertainties caused by the new mining law reforms,".
The company recalled that the reform to the mining law was approved by Mexico's congress in 2023 and published in the official gazette in May, leading Minaurum to respond by filing injunction requests to defend its Mexican projects from the changes.
The Álamos project covers nearly 38,000ha and was originally approved by the environment ministry (Semarnat) to carry out surface exploration and production activities, build drilling platforms and rehabilitate and reactivate underground mining works, among other things.
Minaurum expects to complete the initial resource estimate by the end of 2024 with the participation of Independent Mining Consultants Inc.
After hearing the news of the Álamos injunction, a lawyer specialized in mining told BNamericas on condition of anonymity that it would be advisable to specify in the company's original statement which federal court it is referring to. However, the source also clarified that if the company was talking about the federal court of administrative justice, then the ruling would not be final.
“It's very likely that an appeal for review has been filed that is in the relevant collegiate circuit court,” the lawyer said, adding that “In our office, we have several injunctions granted either by federal administrative judges or this court and all of them were subject to review appeals… by the competent collegiate court.”
Last month, Mexican media reported that the supreme court had stopped the issuance of rulings in 17 injunctions filed against the mining law and related secondary laws.
The supreme court justices agreed to process a request for reassumption of jurisdiction presented by justice Lenia Batres Guadarrama, meaning that the supreme court would be the body tasked with reviewing the injunctions against the changes to the mining law.
Specifically, the court ordered various administrative and criminal collegiate courts handling the review appeals against 17 injunctions not to issue their rulings until the second chamber of the supreme court decides whether to approve the jurisdiction decision and take over the cases.
In other cases, the collegiate courts themselves are declaring themselves incompetent to resolve the injunctions and are directly turning them over to the supreme court, according to the legal expert consulted by BNamericas.
Source: https://www.bnamericas.com/