An Arbitration Financed in Instalments

Most of what we know about the cost of investor-state disputes comes from published awards. But awards only exist for cases that survive to the end, and one small mining company's public filings show what happens along the way.

Background

Cassius Mining is a small Australian exploration company listed on the ASX, worth roughly A$8 million by market value. Since February 2023, it has been in arbitration with the Republic of Ghana over the government's refusal to extend its prospecting licence at the Gbane gold project. The amount claimed has grown steadily: around $275-300 million when it began, $443 million by early 2025, and $905 million by 2026, with a tribunal hearing held in June.

No treaty, no shield from Ghana's own courts

Unlike most disputes this size, there's no investment treaty behind it. The arbitration runs under Ghana's own Alternative Dispute Resolution Act 2010, after a tribunal ruled in February 2024 that the seat is Accra, not London, rejecting Cassius's bid to move the case under UNCITRAL rules. Ghana's Attorney-General pushed for that outcome from the start, and it matters: an Accra seat keeps any eventual award subject to review by Ghana's own High Court.

Paying for it a placement at a time

How does a company this small fund a claim this large? Not through a litigation funder, but through its own public share issues, timed to the stages of the case. The most recent, on 12 August, raised roughly A$2 million at close to a 25% discount to the company's trading average. The arbitration itself stays confidential, but because Cassius is publicly listed, every raise that funds it has to be filed: the trading halt, the

price, the stated purpose, the date.

What that trail makes visible

Almost everything known empirically about the cost of these disputes comes from published awards, simply because awards were the only systematic evidence available — and an award exists only where a case runs to the end. Claims abandoned halfway, settled quietly, or dropped for lack of funds leave no award behind. Where the claimant is listed, though, they still leave a paper trail.

How many claims are never filed at all because the company behind them can't sustain the cost — and how many already underway will vanish the same way, leaving only a filing history behind?