Australian Mines was granted the lease by the State Government on July 5 for its highly prospective Sconi metals project in north Queensland.

But the company’s share price, which had been trending down since the start of the year suddenly spiked on June 29 and then again on July 4, the day before the announcement. It has since settled at around 3.5 cents, more than double the pre-announcement price of 1.3 cents.

However, Australian Mines said it received an email from the Department of Resources at 12.48pm on July 5 advising it that the lease was granted. It informed the market 12 minutes later.

However, the ASX says the State Government’s GeoResGlobe, a data site for the minerals sector, stated that the lease was granted a day earlier, on July 4 and the letter advising it of the granting of the lease was also dated July 4.

In its letter to Australian Mines, the ASX pointed out that one of its listing rules was that a company immediately give the ASX any information concerning it that a reasonable person would expect to have a material affect on its share price.

But the company responded by saying the timing of its release to the market what it considered to be prompt and without delay.

The $1.5 billion Sconi project has been touted as a major step for Queensland and its attempts to benefit from the surging market in battery minerals.

However, Australian Mines has been tainted by scandal before when its one time managing director Benjamin Bell gave investment conferences in Honk Kong and London during which ASIC said he falsely claimed  Australian Mines had secured funding to construct a plant for the Sconi project and misleadingly stated that the value of the offtake agreement with SK Innovation, based on expected production from the Sconi Project, was $5 billion despite the agreement including a potential buyers discount of 15 per cent.

Earlier this year Bell was fined $70,000 and disqualified from managing corporations for two years for breaching his duties as a director.