Barrick-Mali dispute (Loulo-Gounkoto)

The Barrick-Mali file is the dispute between mining group Barrick and the Malian state over the Loulo-Gounkoto gold complex, which political risk underwriters read as a case of creeping expropriation. In August 2023, Mali adopted a new mining code that lets the state take a larger stake in mines and rolls back tax benefits granted under the old regime; the junta asked Barrick, operator of the Loulo-Gounkoto gold complex alongside the state as minority shareholder, to bring its agreement under it. The negotiation stalled. In late 2024, Malian employees of the group were arrested. In January 2025, the authorities seized about three tonnes of gold at the site and Barrick suspended operations, unable to export. The group had already filed for ICSID (International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes) arbitration in December 2024, under the arbitration clauses of its mining conventions with the state. In June 2025, the Malian courts placed the complex under provisional administration. The parties later announced a settlement, at the end of 2025. For a political risk underwriter, the file is a lesson in creeping expropriation. No nationalization decree was ever issued. There was a series of measures, each defensible on its own: a tax reassessment, a criminal proceeding, an export block, a court ruling. CPRI (credit and political risk insurance) policies answer that difficulty in two ways. They cover cumulative acts that deprive the insured of its investment, and they exclude good-faith tax or regulatory measures of general application. In between, the claim gets argued. The gold seizure reads as confiscation of assets, the loss of operational control as expropriation, provided the policy's waiting period has run, and those periods are often counted in months. The provisional administration ordered by a court raises another question: whether a judge's act is an act of the state within the meaning of the wording. A settlement negotiated before the waiting period expires also changes the math, since the insured gets its asset back and the loss is no longer permanent.