What Elmer said at the meeting was that four-year clause was never part of the option (Salazar) agreement but rather, part of the Liard agreement. My recollection of the meeting discussion was not that the option agreement was unenforceable but rather, that it presented problems for both Teck and our company. The most significant difficulty for our company being what Elmer and David described as the "gap" during which the company would potentially have been required to arrange its own financing with the potential of us being "diluted out of the agreement".
The JV agreement which was negotiated avoids that potential difficulty and to use David's words we have been "completely de-risked", from a financing perspective.
I believe that one could probably find examples in which the option agreement might have been better for the company but this is one major example where the JV agreement is better, being de-risked from the finance perspective.
Hey art75, I can't type either, everything I do is voice recognition dictation.