THE 2008 AND 2009 CONTRACTS

With this contract, the owner gives the mining operator the sole rights to utilize the minerals . . . The owner gives the mining operator the right to remove minerals from his mineral mine in Mt. Lambafell . . . and to sell them for his [the mining operator’s] own account.

       – Contract between the IC and Eden, 2009, articles no. 1, 2.

In the year 2008, church members Eiríkur Ingvarsson and Kristinn Ólafsson founded the company Eden Consulting, inc. which had the identification number 6703081970. (Shortly after, the company name was changed to Eden Mining, inc.[1] and to Eden, inc. in 2016.[2] In this document, the company will be referred to as Eden.  

In 2008, the EXCOM made a contract with Eden concerning the mine in Mt. Litla-Sandfell, and in 2009, a similar contract concerning the mine in Mt. Lambafell. The IC owns these mountains because they are on the Breiðabólstaður property which belongs to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. (The IC bought the property in the mid-20th century to build Hlíðardalsskóli.) These contracts expired on 18 January 2022, when the EXCOM signed a new contract with Eden.[3] Though these contracts from 2008 and 2009 have expired, the mining operation was in full swing from 2017 through 2021. The mining case therefore has to do both with the old contracts and the new one. 

To understand the mining case it is necessary to understand the purpose of the old contracts. And to ascertain their purpose, it is necessary to analyze the documents themselves. These contracts were publicly registered at the District Commissioner’s Office. This means they are available to the public at the District Commissioner of South Iceland (Sýslumaður Suðurlands). They are also in the Appendices.[4] Since most of the mining took place in Mt. Lambafell, this document references the contract concerning Mt. Lambafell (2009). 

In the contract about the Mt. Lambafell mine, it seems clear that the purpose of the contract was twofold: (1) Eden was allowed to operate the mine (2) to create a steady revenue for the IC. Let us look at the contract itself.

Eden Was to Operate the Mine (i.e., Mine the Minerals and Sell Them)

The contract opens with the statement that the principal parties, the IC and Eden (the company being referred to as the mining rights holder (námuréttarhafi) are making a contract “concerning the sole right of the mining rights holder to utilize the mineral mine” in Mt. Lambafell. The contract therefore was about allowing Eden to run the mine and to do so solely. But what does it mean to utilize a mine? 

Article 2 is entitled “The Removal and Utilization of Minerals” and explains the utilization: “The owner allows the mining rights holder to remove minerals from his mineral mine” and “there are no limits to the mineral quantity which the mining rights holder is allowed to remove from the mine and sell for his [Eden’s] own account.” I.e., Eden was allowed to mine the minerals and sell them for their own account. To sell something for your own account means that you are the direct seller yourself. 

The wording of article 3 again points to Eden as selling the minerals themselves. In the third paragraph, a “buyer” is assumed who would buy the minerals from Eden. In one of the last paragraphs, it is written that the property owner has the right to appoint a trustee (tilsjónarmaður) to inspect the mineral sale. The trustee can request the auditor of the mining rights holder to confirm the sales figure of specific payloads.” This wording sounds like it is expected that Eden would sell the minerals and that Eden’s auditor would have the sales figures for all “payloads” (i.e., truckloads of the trucks that drive off the mine site). Eden could only have had such sales figures if Eden itself had mined and sold the minerals themselves directly to the buyer who would have come and bought the minerals and driven away with them. (Sales figures over payloads are part of the accounting of the sales and transportation company – and if Eden neither mined nor sold the minerals, they would not have had access to such minute details in the bookkeeping of a third-party company.)

The Purpose of Eden is to create revenue for the IC

In the introduction of the contract, one of the paragraphs is boldened for emphasis. There the reader is told that the purpose of the contract and the purpose of Eden as a company is one and the same thing: “The purpose of the contract is to create a steady long-term revenue for the owner . . . the purpose of the company [Eden] is to create steady revenue for the owners of the mines.” 

From the wording of the contract it therefore seems possible to state that its purpose was as follows: Eden was to run the mine in Mt. Lambafell on its own to create steady revenue for the IC. It is hard to see how Eden followed the spirit and letter of the contract by making a third party run the mine – but this will be discussed further in the next chapter.

[1] The oldest financial statement of the company, from the year 2009, is in the name of Eden Mining. Cf. kt. 6703081970, Fyrirtækjaskrá (Company Register), Skatturinn.is, (Iceland Revenue and Customs), https://www.skatturinn.is/fyrirtaekjaskra/leit/kennitala/6703081970.

[2] Founding documents (stofngögn) of the company are dated 26 March 2008. Cf. kt. 6703081970, Fyrirtækjaskrá, Skatturinn.is, https://www.skatturinn.is/fyrirtaekjaskra/leit/kennitala/6703081970.

[3] “Previous contracts expire at the signing of this contract.” Contract between the IC and Eden, 2022, paragraph 2, p. 1, author’s translation.

[4] Cf. Appendices.