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SANTIAGO, June 18 (Reuters) – Chile’s financial regulator said on Tuesday that the agreement between Codelco and mining company SQM does not need approval from the company’s shareholders and must be resolved by the lithium producer’s board of directors.
The world’s largest copper producer and SQM reached an agreement to create an association that will operate in the coveted Atacama salt flat until 2060, which was conditioned in part by the ruling of the financial organization.
At the end of May, Tianqi asked the Financial Market Commission (CMF) to determine whether the signed agreement should be voted on by the shareholders of the lithium producer, where it owns a fifth of the shares.
“This commission believes that it is not appropriate for an extraordinary SQM shareholder meeting to rule on the so-called association agreement, so that said operation must be analyzed and resolved by the SQM Board of Directors,” the regulator said.
“The above without prejudice to the right of the shareholders, if applicable, to pursue the responsibilities of the directors in accordance with the general rules, in the event of damage to the company and the shareholders. In this way, it is not possible for this Service access what was requested in his presentation,” he added.
THE CMF had said at the beginning of the month that it would seek to speed up the study of the case.
At the beginning of January, SQM had already asked the CMF to rule on whether an eventual agreement should be voted on, to which the regulator responded in March that it only required board approval.
But Tianqi insists that there would be an impact on assets, which would require debate at the shareholders’ meeting.
Tianqi did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
For his part, the president of the Codelco board of directors, Máximo Pacheco, had said that
I didn’t see how Tianqi could hinder the operation
. (Reporting by Kylie Madry, Natalia Ramos. Writing by Javier Leira and Fabián Cambero)
Reuters
