National Instrument 43-101

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National Instrument 43-101 (NI 43-101) is a mineral resource classification and is a national instrument for the Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects with the Canadian Securities Administrators. The NI is a strict guideline for how public Canadian companies can disclose scientific and technical information about mineral projects. Disclosures include press releases, presentations, oral comments, and websites.

The instrument requires that a "qualified person" be attributed to the information. A qualified person is defined as:

  • an engineer or geoscientist with at least 5 years experience in the mineral resources field
  • a subject matter expert in the mineral resources field and has a professional association

[edit] Bre-X

The NI 43-101 was created after the Bre-X scandal to protect investors from unsubstantiated mineral project disclosures.

"The gold reserves at (Bre-X's) Busang were alleged to be 200 million ounces (6,200 t), or up to 8% of the entire world's gold. However, it was a massive fraud and there was no gold. The core samples had been faked by salting them with outside gold. An independent lab later claimed that the faking had been poorly done, including the use of shavings from gold jewelry. In 1997, Bre-X collapsed and its shares became worthless in one of the biggest stock scandals in Canadian history."

[edit] External links