Marcos/Clarification
Marcos: You wrote: "Either Crystallex is lying, or Asensio is lying." Would that it were that simple.
Your statement may be an improper exclusionary disjunction. Taking 'lie' in its simplest sense, neither one may be knowingly expressing a falsehood. Then again, without knowing exactly what statements by either that you are referring to, they may both be lying.
At first glance, Asensio would seem to be the easiest target for an accusation of lying. I think the purpose of his claims are quite clear and, at the very least, this invites suspicion. However, when you examine his statements, he is very careful about the presentation of facts. Having said that, those facts may have been presented out of context and may even have been subsequently superseded by other facts.
The preceding does not eliminate the possibility that Asensio is guilty of lying, if 'lying' is considered in the more complex sense of being 'deceptive'. That, however, may be very difficult to prove in a legal sense. Part of the problem here is that of interpretation. You may recall one of Asensio's early claims to the effect that there was no case before any court that would give Crystallex title to LC 4 & 6. (That, by the way, was a paraphrase.) Some people immediately interpreted this as a claim by Asensio that there was no case before the courts. Since there clearly was a case before the courts, Asensio must be a liar. Properly read, however, Asensio's statement is equivalent to the claim that there is a case before the courts that Crystallex can't win. That some people chose to punctuate Asensio's statement following 'there is no case before any court' is not his responsibility.
Even if Asensio had made the seemingly stronger claim that there is no case before any court that will give Crystallex the rights to mine LC 4 & 6 (which he may have done at some point), it would be very difficult to prove that he was lying. The truth of that statement is a contingent matter that won't be known until the court rules on that issue. If Crystallex does, in fact, acquire these rights, perhaps the worst that could be said about Asensio's claim in the legal arena would be that he was wrong.
These are only a few of the possibilities. I won't run through the same exercise with respect to Crystallex. I will simply point out that all of Crystallex's public statements may be factual, they may be convinced that their legal position is sound, and they may yet be wrong. None of this would make them guilty of lying.
Clarification: In a response to an earlier post of mine today a claim was made regarding a Crystallex fraud. I want to dissociate myself from that response. I made no such claim. I have no knowledge to that effect. I did not intend that my post be interpreted as encouraging any such inference.
Regards. |
