Sundance Resources awarded $616M after Cameroon’s ‘unlawful’ iron ore project grab

Sundance Resources has won a $616-million (C$870-million) arbitration award after an International Chamber of Commerce tribunal found Cameroon breached its legal obligations over the Mbalam-Nabeba iron ore project.

The Perth-based miner said the tribunal ruled in favour of Sundance and its subsidiary Cam Iron SA, finding that Cameroon unlawfully revoked the company’s mining rights before awarding the Mbalam permit to another developer. 

The tribunal also found the government breached an arbitration agreement by ignoring an ICC emergency order issued in March 2022 that barred it from granting the permit to another party.

The decision caps a six-year legal battle over one of Africa’s largest undeveloped iron ore deposits and marks a sharp turnaround for Sundance after it lost a separate arbitration against the Republic of Congo in January, when a tribunal dismissed the company’s $8.8-billion claim over the Nabeba portion of the same project. 

Cameroon must now satisfy the award voluntarily or Sundance will pursue enforcement proceedings.

Historic project

Sundance was forced to delist from the ASX in 2020 after the DRC and Cameroon seized their parts of the cross-border project. The projects may have ended up with Chinese companies. 

Cameroon’s mines ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The country’s mines minister said in July that Mbalam was among new projects expected to help lift annual mining revenue to 1 trillion CFA francs ($1.75 billion).

Sundance was developing the cross-border iron ore project in 2010 when a plane carrying the company’s entire board crashed in the Republic of Congo. Eleven people died, including director and major shareholder Ken Talbot, one of Australia’s best-known mining entrepreneurs at the time.

As of June 30 last year, Sundance owed $134 million, much of it to lenders such as Ukrainian billionaire Gennadiy Bogolyubov, the Australian Fiancial Review reported on Monday.