MARCOPPER Mining Corp. yesterday asked the
Supreme Court to reconsider its Sept. 12, 2008 decision favoring
the position of the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. that it was
not obligated to release the mining equipment and club shares
mortgaged to the bank as payment for a US$5.4 million
restructured loan.
Marcopper asked the SC to affirm instead the
June 6, 2005 ruling of the Court of Appeals ordering RCBC to
execute the deed of partial release from mortgage of subject
properties and assets of Marcopper before the bank can enforce
collection on two promissory notes (PNs) from the mining firm.
Among the mortgaged assets were six Rig Haul
Trucks, one Demag Hydraulic Excavator Shovel, and shares in the
Baguio and Canlubang Golf and Country Clubs, Philippine
Columbian Association, and Puerto Azul.
Marcopper claimed the SC was misled into
giving undue significance to a falsified deed of pledge executed
by a resigned Marcopper executive, witnessed by RCBC employees,
and executed long after the Export Loan Line transaction had
already been shelved.
Marcopper had been seeking the release of its
equipment mortgaged to RCBC after the bank agreed to the
assignment of a valuable piece of real estate owned by the
mining firm in payment for the loan. The property was earlier
mortgaged to a bank other than RCBC and the holder only agreed
to release it in exchange for the mining trucks and shovel.
The Makati regional trial court ruled that
based on a July 1997 agreement, the equipment must be released
by RCBC before the bank can invoke the collection of the
promissory notes for the balance. But the SC ruled that the deed
of pledge executed by Marcopper in September 1997 was proof that
there was no agreement for the release of the equipment.
Marcopper maintained that the September 1997
deed of chattel mortgage was executed for another transaction,
an export loan lines deal which had long been shelved. It had
secured a bridge loan without collateral in 1995 from RCBC to
partially finance the acquisition of 12 mining trucks. To repay
this, Marcopper obtained long-term financing approved by the US
Eximbank in 1996.
The long term financing from US Eximbank
required a standby letter of credit from a local bank and RCBC
agreed to provide it. To secure the L/C, Marcopper mortgaged the
12 trucks and shovel to RCBC.
After the tailings spill incident in Marinduque, the
transaction for the Eximbank loan was aborted. Since the
Eximbank loan did not push through and RCBC did not issue the
foreign standby L/C nor provide the export loan lines, there was
no basis for the mortgage of the trucks, shovel and pledge of
the club shares, Marcopper reasoned. –Evangeline de Vera
