I found this court decision where the person who had forfeited their claims was given them back by the Gold Commissioner and it was upheld by the court. It took about a year from when the claims were forefeited for the judgment from the Supreme Court of BC.
It's pretty heavy reading but I think the end result was that the Gold Commissioner does have the right to make these changes. However, the decision was taken because the MTO system was not functional at the time the person needed to renew her claims.
There seemed to be an implication that if there was an error then they might reverse them. The error could be in the MTO office system, or wth the people that forefeited the claims. At the same time, the rules need to mean something and not just be rules for some people.
That might be why they are trying to say it was an error—that unbeknownst to them the claims reverted to an earlier date after amalgamation.
We have to remember that the Gold Commissioner wants to be able to give the claims back to Carmax because the whole point is to promote mining in BC. The Yukon boys do have a history of small-time mining, but Carmax has put a lot of money into the project and reasonably will do a better job moving forward. The Gold Commissioner is allowed to take into account the work done on the property in the past, and the longevity of the claim.
I'll bet dollars to donuts that the GC is telling the Yukon boys he might just rule against them so they should be reasonable, and he's telling Carmax to pony up because they made a mistake that might be unforgiveable.
In terms of who made the mistake, my money would be on the VP of Exploration, Jeff Poloni. However, he staked more land himself than the Yukon boys combined (although not as important in location) and the claims remain in his name. Tactically speaking, he is wise to keep hold of the properties just in case anyone wants to blame him, plus it holds them in case there is a problem with Carmax.
Here's the link: http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/jdb-txt/SC/13/11/2013BCSC1172.htm
