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iMinerals Inc.
All rights reserved.
iMinerals Inc.
All rights reserved.
September 23, 2014
Vancouver, B.C. (September 23, 2014) - I-Minerals Inc. (TSX.V: IMA; OTCQX: IMAHF) (“the Company” or “I-Minerals”)
advises that, further to its press release of August 18, 2014, it has
received the Order and Opinion on the Plaintiff’s motion for a
Preliminary Injunction from the General Court of Justice, Superior Court
Division in Mitchell County, North Carolina (the “Court”). As noted
in the Company’s August 18, 2014 press release, the Plaintiff, Unimin
Corporation (“Unimin”) was seeking among other things, injunctions
against Dr. Thomas Gallo, a former Unimin employee, and I-Minerals
(collectively the “Defendants”) to terminate contacts and to unwind any
alleged infringement on purported Unimin trade secrets, the return of
unspecified, purportedly confidential information and damages related
thereto. In the decision received by the Company on September 17, 2014,
the Court denied Unimin’s Motion for a Preliminary Injunction (the
“P.I. Motion”) pursuant to Rule 65 of the North Carolina Rules of Civil
Procedure and determined “Unimin has failed to present sufficient
evidence to show that it is will succeed on the merits of its claims.”
I-Minerals’ President, Thomas Conway stated “We are obviously very
pleased with the court’s decision.”
Unimin is a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in
Connecticut that mines and processes various minerals, including high
purity quartz (“HPQ”), glass grade feldspar, ceramic grade feldspar,
filler grade feldspar and melting quartz in multiple locations,
including four locations in Mitchell and Avery Counties in the North
Carolina mountains. It mines and processes HPQ under the trade names
Quartzil, Quintus, and Iota and sells its HPQ worldwide for use in a
variety of industries, including the semiconductor manufacturing, quartz
lighting, and fiber optic cable industries. Unimin states that it is
the global leader in HPQ and that its processes for creating Quintus and
Iota quartz are confidential, proprietary, and/or trade secret. On
August 13, 2014 the Court issued a Temporary Restraining Order
restraining and enjoining Dr. Gallo from disclosing to the Company
specifications of Unimin’s processes in producing high purity quartz.
But it should be noted the Company stated and maintains that Dr. Gallo
never offered such information, nor did the Company seek such
information, since the processes employed by Unimin to obtain their
“degree of quartz purity that can be achieved, and the processes
employed to achieve it are entirely dependent on the qualities of the
[Unimin] raw ore product.” Thus, much of what Unimin alleges to be
trade secrets regarding their North Carolina ore would be inapplicable
to the Company’s Idaho ore thousands of miles away. All other actions
sought by Unimin were denied in the Motion for Preliminary Injunction
heard August 26, 2014.
Pursuant to the August 26, 2014 hearing the Court found that what Unimin
claimed to be “trade secrets” were broadly stated and lacked
particularity, and that Unimin had not provided a sufficient description
of the alleged trade secrets at issue to provide the Defendants
sufficient notice of those trade secrets, and instead “invited” the
Court to acknowledge the existence of trade secrets in the submitted
information without bearing the burden of identifying those trade
secrets. I-Minerals has brought forward evidence suggesting that the
process for purifying quartz is generally known in the industry, and
that, in particular, the floatation process, the design and use of rock
crushing equipment, the technique of magnetic separation, the process of
gassing or hot chlorination, proper gassing temperatures and the
process of electrodynamic comminution are all generally known in the
mining (and HPQ) industry. Unimin’s failure to show its specific,
unique modifications to these well-known processes or techniques either
unfairly deprives the Defendants of an opportunity to rebut Unimin’s
claim of trade secret protection or suggests that Unimin’s claim for
trade secret protection of this information is not well-founded or both.
I-Minerals evidence raised further doubt about Unimin’s ability to
show that it has a protectable trade secret in this information and
substantially negates Unimin’s claim that it could show a likelihood of
success on the merits concerning this lawsuit. Accordingly, the Court
denied Unimin’s Preliminary Injunction Motion.
I-Minerals’ President, Thomas Conway also stated, “Our Helmer-Bovill
Property is some 3,000 miles from Unimin’s deposit and therefore hosted
in an entirely different geologic environment. Our processing
techniques rely on standard flotation - a technique used in the majority
of all mines worldwide. Management of I-Minerals has felt from the
beginning of this action that this is nothing more than an empty attempt
by Unimin to continue to dominate the high purity quartz industry by
using all means at its disposal to preclude competition. We believe it
also indicates Unimin must view I-Minerals as credible competition in
the high purity quartz markets. “Why else would they have brought this
action?”
In an unrelated matter, I-Minerals is seeking a summary dismissal of the
action brought by the Brent Thomson Family Trust and Hoodoo Resources,
LLC (collectively the Plaintiffs) in the District Court of the Fourth
Judicial District of the State Court of Idaho on September 25, 2014. As
noted in the Company’s press releases of March 30, 2014 and July 3,
2014, the Company believes the allegations put forward by the Plaintiffs
are completely without merit and looks forward to the resolution of
this matter such that it can move forward with the development of the
Bovill Kaolin Deposit, part of the Company’s Helmer Bovill Property.
About I-Minerals Inc.
I-Minerals is developing multiple deposits of high purity, high value
halloysite, quartz, potassium feldspar and kaolin at its strategically
located Helmer-Bovill property in north central Idaho. A 2014
Prefeasibility Study on the Bovill Kaolin Deposit completed by SRK
Consulting (USA) Inc. highlights the potential of the Helmer-Bovill
property’s Bovill Kaolin deposit: after tax NPV6 of $212 million; 30.5%
IRR; 3 year payback and $72.7 million initial CAPEX; $84 million CAPEX
including life of mine sustaining capital over a 25 year mine life.
Ongoing development work is focused on moving project towards
production.
I-Minerals Inc.
per: “Thomas M. Conway”
Thomas M. Conway,
President & CEO
Contact:
I-Minerals Inc.
Barry Girling
877-303-6573 or 604-303-6573
Email: info@imineralsinc.com
Or visit our website at www.imineralsinc.com
NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER
(AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE)
ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS NEWS
RELEASE.
This News Release includes certain “forward looking statements”
within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation
Reform Act of 1995. Without limitation, statements regarding potential
mineralization and resources, exploration results, and future plans and
objectives of the Company are forward looking statements that involve
various risks. Actual results could differ materially from those
projected as a result of the following factors, among others: changes in
the world wide price of mineral market conditions, risks inherent in
mineral exploration, risk associated with development, construction and
mining operations, the uncertainty of future profitability and
uncertainty of access to additional capital.