The shareholders of Intrepid Mines last Thursday had backed their board of directors to make efforts to recover the rights over a US$5 billion gold and copper mine in Indonesia. The said mining rights were lost last year and this has caused the rejection of the proposal to oust the board from their positions.

According to Quantum Pacific, the main proponents of the ouster of the board, said through a statement, "There is a single point that a majority of shareholders that voted appear to have failed to grasp: this Board failed to protect shareholders from predictable and manageable risks faced by every foreign investor in Indonesia or similar emerging markets." Quantum Pacific is based out of Hong Kong.

The mine at the center of the issue is the Tujuh Bukit project and it was lost last year when the Indonesian partners had transferred the leases of the project to form a new company. Currently, these mining leases are Indonesian mogul Edwin Soeryadjaya.