A court case in Portugal has led to the freezing of a million-dollar deal in which Indian steelmaker JSW Steel, owned by billionaire Sajjan Jindal, intends to acquire the estate of Australian maganta Ken Talbot, who died 14 years ago.

The deal is for the lease of the Revuboè coal mine (MdR), in Tete province, valued at 50 billion dollars, according to the Bloomberg.

Sajjan's JSW agreed to acquire MdR in November 2023, according to a spokesman for Talbot's estate, and in May announced a final deal under which it agreed to pay 74 million dollars for a 92% stake. That's a fraction of the 555 million dollars that 12 years earlier Anglo American Plc said it would pay for a 58.9% stake in the same coal project. The London-based mining giant pulled out of the transaction eight months later.

JSW seems to be "watching from the sidelines" since the government has suspended the agreement with MdR and, through an announcement, has given 30 days to submit objections to the concession being granted to Stonecoal SA. Meanwhile, notes Bloomberg, Stonecoel has as directors four of five employees at Jindal Steel & Power Ltd, a company led by Naveen Jindal, Sajjan's younger brother.

The concession has not yet been granted to Stonecoal, according to Mozambique's mining license database.

The brothers occasionally have small cross-shareholdings in each other's companies, but they are managed separately and even occasionally compete with each other.

MdR has filed a lawsuit in Mozambique seeking to force the government to restore the lost lease. In September, the company also initiated arbitration proceedings in Geneva against the Ministry of Mineral Resources and the presidency.

Now the legal battle continues between MdR and the Mozambican state, and should become a challenge for the next government to be led by Daniel Chapo.