According to previously unreported regulatory documents, Sigma Lithium, the largest player in Brazil’s booming lithium industry, has found “probable” mineral reserves on two plots of land that have been caught up in a legal dispute between the company’s CEO, Ana Cabral, and her ex-husband, Calvyn Gardner, a former co-CEO.
The documents, which were filed by Sigma with Brazil’s mining regulator in November, show that the company had found these probable reserves on the disputed land, contradicting its earlier statements that the land “contain[ed] no mineral reserves or resources.”
The legal battle over the mineral rights for this land was triggered by the couple’s divorce proceedings and has rattled Sigma’s share price since last year, when Reuters first reported on a Brazilian court injunction that halted the sale or mining of the land where Sigma had been planning open pits while exploring options to sell itself.
The existence of lithium reserves on the disputed land strengthens Gardner’s case that the land might hold value, according to his lawyers, who have asked for the injunction limiting Sigma’s control over the land to be upheld and for a formal geological assessment of the land to be conducted.
Sigma did not respond to questions about the matter, but its outside lawyers stated that the documents and allegations made by Gardner and his counsel are part of the legal record that will be addressed during the course of the litigation.
Gardner declined to comment on the ongoing legal dispute. Sigma had previously downplayed the importance of the dispute, stating in September that the plots “contain no mineral reserves or resources” and that it was contracting a third-party valuation of the disputed land, “which we anticipate being not material.”