ALLEGED BREACHES OF CONTRACT

There have been no breaches of the contracts, there are legal memos that confirm this.

     – Eden, open letter, 14 March, p. [1].

 

From legal advice we already received from our own lawyers last year, the contracts from 2008 and 2009 were valid and legally binding.

       – The EXCOM, open letter to the church boards, 16 March 2022, p. 3.

 

It seems that Eden’s implementation of the contract concerning Mt. Lambafell was faulty in the following ways:

 

  1. The central purpose (introduction, articles no. 2 an 8): The IC and Eden “hereby make the following contract concerning the exclusive right of the mining rights holder to utilize the mineral mine in Mt. Lambafell.” The contract appears to define the utilization of the mine as its operation (mining and selling the minerals, cf. introduction and article no. 2). Eden seems to have had a third party operate the mine and to never have ran the operation themselves.[1]  It seems impossible to regard this but as a transfer of contract, which is forbidden according to article no. 8. GCAS pointed out this alleged breach of contract[2]

  2. Eden’s payments to the IC (articles no. 3 and 7): Eden was to pay three annual payments. However, GCAS did ask Eden for documents despite of having been asked to investigate whether Eden had paid in compliance with the contract. Kristján Ari Sigurðsson has pointed out to the author that it seems that Eden did some miscalculations since the company booked some amounts in their financial statements a year later, and this influenced the outcome of the due amounts[3]

  3. 10% of the gross value of the minerals sold off the site (article no. 3): One of the payments Eden was supposed to pay to the IC was supposed to be 10% of the gross value of minerals sold off the site. The wording indicates that the IC should have received 10% of the final market value of the minerals, i.e., 10% of the price that was paid for the minerals when they were bought and transported from the site. However, Eden sold the minerals at a flat price per cubic meter to a third party, and it was the third party that mined, processed, and sold the minerals off the site—for a much higher price per cubic meter than the price for which they had bought the material from Eden. This means that the IC did not receive the supposed 10% of the gross value of the minerals sold off the site

  4. Payments not on time (article no. 3): Eden seems (often) not have paid at the right time.[4] According to the contract, this is a grave matter, for in article no. 7 it is stated that “it is to be considered a grave default if the mining rights holder does not pay on the due date.” GCAS pointed out this alleged breach of contract[5]

  5. Payments not based on audited financial statements (article no. 3): Eden sent payments to the IC and the IC in turn sent retroactive invoices to Eden based on those same payments. The payments were not based on audited annual financial statements. GCAS pointed out this alleged breach of contract[6]

  6. Transfer of contract (article no. 8): In reading the contract in its entirety, it seems to be obvious that Eden was to operate the mine and that that was the essence of the contract. But Eden does not seem to have operated the mine—the task seems to have been handed over to third parties from A to Z: GT-verktakar (and later Lambafell inc.) mined the minerals, processed them and sold them. When Lambafell inc. operated the mine this was clearly stated on their website. In addition, the sales contract between Eden and GT-verktakar[7] includes statements that seem to clearly indicate transfer of the mining utilization/rights to GT-verktakar


[1] See the chapter “Alleged Transfer.”

[2] See, e.g., the second paragraph in “Key Findings” in the GCAS-report, p. 5.

[3] Kristján Ari Sigurðsson has not as of yet written about this, but this requires a fairly complicated bookkeeping explanation.

[4] EXCOM members (2016 – 2019) are witnesses to this fact, including Kristján Ari Sigurðsson. The author and other church members asked Treasurer Ditta for the trial balance for 2019–2022 which would confirm the defaults during that period. The Treasurer refused their request without giving an explanation as to why.

[5] The GCAS report, p. 4.

[6] The GCAS report, p. 4.

[7] Contract between Eden and GT Hreinsun, 2018, is in the Appendices.