NOTE 5 – ARBITRATION FINANCING

On September 5, 2023, the Company entered into a litigation funding agreement (“Funding Agreement” or the “LFA”) with Bench Walk, a third party, which specializes in funding litigation and arbitration claims. Under the terms of the LFA, Bench Walk has agreed to fund the Company with up to $9.5 million to cover the Company’s legal, tribunal and external expert costs and defined corporate operating expenses associated with the Arbitration proceedings as a purchase of a contingent entitlement to damages.

During the three months ended January 31, 2026, pursuant to the terms of the LFA, the Company received $nil reimbursement of corporate operating costs from Bench Walk (January 31, 2025: $200,000). Subsequent to the quarter-end, the Company received $200,000 from Bench Walk on February 5, 2026 (Note 17).   Additionally, Bench Walk has made payments on the Company’s behalf for legal and arbitration costs totaling $191,892 during the three months ended January 31, 2026 and accumulated legal and arbitration costs of $5,925,000 since September 2023. The Company continues to have complete control over the conduct of the international arbitration proceedings, insofar as the proceedings relate to the Company’s claims, and continues to have the right to settle with Mexico, discontinue proceedings, pursue the proceedings to a merits hearing and take any action the Company considers appropriate to enforce the resulting arbitral award.

The Company agreed that Bench Walk shall be entitled to receive a share of any proceeds arising from the Claim (the “Claim Proceeds”) of up to 3.5x Bench Walk’s capital outlay (or, if greater, a return of 1.0x Bench Walk’s capital outlay plus 30% of Claim Proceeds). The actual return to Bench Walk may be lower than the foregoing amounts depending on how quickly the Claim is resolved.

As security for Bench Walk’s entitlement to receive a share of the Claim Proceeds under the LFA, the Company granted to Bench Walk a security interest in the Claim Proceeds, the Claim, all documents of title pertaining to the Claim, rights under any appeal bond or similar instrument posted by any of the defendants in the Claim, and all proceeds of any of the foregoing.

During the three months ended January 31, 2026 and 2025, the following is a summary of the Company’s expenditures that have been incurred and reimbursed or are expected to be reimbursed from Bench Walk.