I think having functional control of the Liard board via majority ownership of the shares we could decide to enforce or relax timeline protections provided within the agreement.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that Teck had full control of the Liard shares up until they relinquished them to us--so they could have voted to remove any time constraints or anything else they didn't like before they handed them over to us. They could have simply cancelled, or re-negotiated, the Agreement under which we believe the 4-year clause existed between Liard and Hecla.

As I understand it (admittedly not an expert), they had to declare their intended backin percentage within 120 days and then work towards backing in, with us as the operator directing the spending of the funds.

Almost correct. They did have 120 days to declare, and Teck had to spend 4X expenditures to earn 75%. It's not clear to me that Copper Fox would have been the operator, although I know we used to say that but I can't read it in the contract. It specifically states that while Teck is earning-back their share they have the right to, "...do such prospecting, exploration, development or other mining work thereon or thereunder as [Teck] in its sole discretion may consider advisable..." There doesn't seem to be a requirement to spend any amount of money per year until after they earn-back their 75% and a JV is formed. Teck would have the sole right to decide whether to put it into production.