A FILIPINO-OWNED mining company has sought the inhibition of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno in a case pending before the Supreme Court (SC) seeking the reversal of a Court of Appeals (CA) decision that barred three mining companies from operating in the country for violation of the constitutional provision on foreign ownership.
In its motion, Redmont Consolidated Mines Corp., through its lawyer Gioan Fernand Legaspi, noted that Sereno’s inhibition from the case is warranted because of her husband’s strong involvement with DMCI Mining Corp., which has “a substantial financial interest in the legal proceedings.”
Redmont also pointed out that DMCI is a transferee of interest in three mining firms—Narra Nickel Mining and Development Corp., Tesoro Mining and Development Inc., and McArthur Mining Inc.—which are all subsidiaries of MBMI Resources Inc., a Canadian company.
It noted that Sereno’s husband, Mario Jose Sereno, is a corporate planning officer of DMCI.
The three mining firms are the petitioners in the case, which was originally assigned to the SC’s Second Division, but was transferred to the First Division, where Sereno sits as chairman.
They are seeking the reversal of the CA ruling, which declared them as foreign corporations and are, thus, barred from conducting mining activities in the country using the mineral-production sharing agreement.
On April 4, 2014, the three mining firms invoked before the Court that the issue on their nationalities is already moot,
after MBMI transferred and conveyed all of its shareholdings/interests in the holding companies to DMCI.
The holding companies’ other shareholder (to the extent of 66 percent or 67 percent) is Lanvin Natural Resources Corp., which is also a corporation duly organized and existing under Philippine law and is at least 60-percent Philippine-owned.
Thus, with DMCI’s acquisition and purchase of MBMI’s shareholdings in the holding companies, they became 100-percent owned by a Filipino firm.
Redmont said it was able to confirm the transfer of MBMI’s shares in the three mining firms to DMCI and the latter’s interest in the legal proceedings on MBMI’s web site.
“Respondent cannot just sit idly by doing nothing after discovering the significance of the repeated manifestations of petitioners that DMCI allegedly infused millions of dollars to fund this case and that it will lose everything if petitioners do not succeed in the ongoing legal proceedings,” Redmont said in its motion.
“Respondent is thus constrained to file this motion to inhibit the Honorable Chief Justice Maria Lourdes A. Sereno considering the strong relations of her husband with DMCI, who happens to be the financier of the foregoing legal proceedings and where he worked as its supposed corporate planning officer,” it added.
Redmont alleged that DMCI has provided $1.8 million to fund MBMI’s cost in pursuing the legal proceedings.