The development of a large nickel deposit in the Solomon Islands is back to square one this week, as the nation’s highest court ruled that neither of the two firms in Japan and Australia fighting over the discovery were entitled to the license.
The Solomon Islands Court of Appeal on Monday rejected a portion of Sumitomo Metal Mining’s appeal that the country’s government should not have cancelled in 2011 Sumitomo’s license to develop the Isabel nickel laterite discovery.
