Summary of contract

• Negotiation, representation, and other relevant context

  ATLA consulted with common law holders and received their consent to act on their behalf to enter into the agreement (Recitals A, C)

• Governance, implementation, dispute resolution

  Any party can give notice that it requires a review (and renegotiation) of the agreement every 5 years (Art. 2.2). In case of dispute: - when it comes to the framework: parties should resort to mediation; if mediation fails, parties should resort to consultation with an expert that is not an arbitrator (Art. 11); - when it comes to the exploration contract conditions, parties should first meet to solve the issue, then failing that in case of alleged breach the contract, the dispute party should notify the Minister. Then the Minister should at its own cost document the case and parties should use it to solve the dispute. Failing that parties should resort to mediation and failing that to an expert that is not an arbitrator (Schedule 2, Art. 18). ATLA have the right to make an objection to the grant of the right to explore under certain conditions (Schedule 2, Arts. 12, 13)

• Fiscal obligations: content

  The explorer must pay the community an acceptance fee of AUD$ 9,000,000, escalated by CPI, within 10 days of 2 possible events: (1) the explorer getting legal authorization to explore; and (2) the explorer asking ATLA to start a heritage clearance survey. If the exploration tenement on which activities are authorised is the fourth or more then there is an additional acceptance fee of AUD$ 2,500,000 (Schedule 2, Art. 8.2).The State must pay $55000 to ATLA within 40 business days of entering into the agreement. This must be used to fund administration costs of the agreement, and $5000 can be used to support ATLA's negotiation costs (Art. 8.1).

• Community development obligations: Local content

  The parties must consult with relevant communities for strategies and programs for government-funded training (Art. 4.4d). The explorer must notify ATLA of any job vacancy before deadline of applications if the position is advertised or before the related exploration activities (Schedule 2, Art. 15.2a). ATLA may notify the explorer of the existence of relevant skills in the community (Schedule 2, Art. 15.3). If both lawful and practical to do so, preference for employment should be given to a community member if they have superior skills, ability and experience compared to other applicants (Schedule 2, Art. 15.4). This requirement applies to the contractors too (Schedule 2, Art. 15.6). If training is given to employees employed in similar capacity as community members, these should benefit from the training too. This requirement applies to the contractors too (Schedule 2, Arts.15.5, 15.6a).

• Environmental and social protection

  The explorer should act in accordance with the Aboriginal Heritage Act (Schedule 2, Art. 6.4). A specific procedure should be followed by the explorer to get clearance regarding protection and preservation of an aboriginal site before carrying out activities (Schedule 2, Art. 7).

• Reference to investor-state contract

  The schedule 2 of the agreement sets out the exploration contract conditions that is pursuant to the exploration contract signed by the parties (Schedule 2, Preamble).

• Other noteworthy clauses

  Persons with native title rights to land or water in the area covered by the agrement, including those who are not parties to the agreement, are considered bound by the agreement (Art. 3.3). There is no other compensation payment payable to the community under the agreeement unless there is a breach of the agreement (Arts. 8.3, 8.4). By signing the framework ILUA, parties consented to the grant of the authorised exploration tenements and to the exploration activities on these tenements (Schedule 2, Preamble).
  There is a process for review and amendment of the agreement (Art. 2.2), but parties are not entitled to terminate the agreement for any reason, including if another party breaches or repudiates the agreement (Art. 2.3).