The Plaintiff said its officials attended numerous meetings with the President, Vice President, Finance Minister, Labour Minister, Minister of Agriculture, Director of Forests, Forestry Division representative to discuss the breach of the Agreement. Although, the Defendant did not rescind the ban, the Plaintiff was forced by the Defendant to pay an additional three (3) months of wages to its workers. According to the Plaintiff, it was operating at a loss, and so it decided to stop all operations after the President of Sierra Leone had reneged on his promise on three separate occasions to lift the ban. The Plaintiff was forced at great expense to relocate all its equipment to Kenema for safekeeping. Plaintiff further states that in 2011, its representatives met with top officials of the Defendant to discuss the issue of compensation, but the Defendant refused to commit itself. From the records before this Court, in 2012, the Plaintiff sued the Defendant at the High Court of Sierra Leone (Commercial Division) for the breach of the contract. The Defendant decided not to take part in the proceedings. The court gave a default judgment in favour of the Plaintiff. Based on the default judgment obtained from the court, the Plaintiff continued up to 2017 to persuade the Defendant to reach a settlement, but the Defendant still refused to discuss compensation on the ground that the Agreement provided for arbitration and not civil litigation. According to the plaintiff, a meeting was held between its Counsel Mr. Ibrahim Yillah on January 5, 2018, the Defendant’s Attorney-General, Mr. Joseph Fitzgerald Kamara and the defendant’s Attorney General informed the plaintiff that it was not prepared to refer the dispute to arbitration in line with the terms of the Venture Agreement. 5