Although labeling their stake in MICCL as worthless conveniently meant that Ivanhoe no longer was compelled to disclose in three years worth of regulatory filings that it still owned assets in Burma, the legality of this action is something that must be examined by both US and Canadian regulators.
We now know thanks to the Wikileaks cables and Glenn Ford's repeated conversations with embassy officials that Ivanhoe was in fact involved in the regular operations of the Monywa Mine long after Ivanhoe's stake was officially transferred to the “blind trust.” When Ivanhoe acknowledged in August 2011 that its supposedly worthless stake had finally been sold for $103 million, many questions were left still unanswered.
Although we may never know for sure what led the staff at Burma's Ministry of Mines to believe that they could get way with deliberately misallocating more than $100 million, it is not beyond the realm of possibility they were inspired by Ivanhoe's own attempts to cook the books.
Tin Maung Htoo is the executive director of Canadian Friends of Burma. The opinions expressed in this guest commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Irrawaddy.
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