Source: Financial Times, 15th July 2010

Rio Tinto and Canada's Ivanhoe are locked in a Mongolian stand-off over a copper and gold deposit near the Chinese border with a capital cost of $4.6bn. The dispute, as convoluted as the plot of Sir Walter Scott's novel Ivanhoe, revolves around how easily Rio can take a majority interest in the Vancouver-based miner, so securing control of its Oyu Tolgoi deposit. So far, Rio has financed the project in return for a growing stake in Ivanhoe. It holds about 30 per cent, but is capped by a standstill at 47 per cent until next year.