This is the fourth part of our blog series exposing TMC’s financial risks. 

See the other parts here:  Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

A Rogue Company in a Broken System

The Metals Company (TMC) has revealed its latest manoeuvre: applying to mine the deep sea not through the International Seabed Authority (ISA), but under the U.S. Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act (DSHMRA). Using the Trump deep sea mining backdoor.

“This is obviously a move that abandons the multilateral process in favour of a Trump backdoor.”

A move that will have serious consequences for the future of the company, and the world. TMC will do anything, even trample over international law to get what it wants.

It’s grotesque that a private company, operating through a legal loophole under the U.S – who aren’t even a party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) – has allied with the U.S. to mine the global commons without consent, and without oversight from, or benefit to, the international community.

This isn’t impatience. It is the act of a rogue company exploiting a broken system.

A Path Through a Legal Minefield

The U.S. domestic law, DSHMRA, predates the ISA and was intended as a stop-gap to the U.S. ratifying UNCLOS. Now its use is justified to supply the U.S. with critical metals.

By choosing this route, TMC is deliberately undermining the international legal order.

Mining the deep sea is reckless in any context, but doing so by bypassing the already fragile multilateral system makes it worse. TMC is attempting to sidestep the agreed, albeit imperfect, international approach to governing our shared ocean spaces, and take what it wants through a process designed for American self-interest.

This is a unilateral resource grab on the global commons.

Deep Sea Looting: What Happens When the Rules Don’t Suit You

The ISA was created as a space for multilateral negotiation over a global commons. The principle that the seabed beyond national jurisdiction is the common heritage of humankind is enshrined in international law.

TMC’s decision to go through the U.S. has been forced on it by its need to generate cash quickly. Yet it’s also a declaration that the company does not recognise the international community’s authority over the deep sea.

That it will take any route available to plunder the ocean floor.

Any products or supply chains linked to minerals extracted under this rogue pathway risk being tainted by illegality. Governments, investors and downstream companies should consider the reputational and legal risks of touching anything associated with it.

A Green Betrayal

TMC has, since the days it was called DeepGreen, sold itself as a responsible company whose prime purpose was to provide minerals for the global good via an energy transition.

It has now completely pivoted to lobbying the U.S. Government claiming to provide minerals for security purposes and for the MAGA-led American re-industrialisation.

It also presented itself as a supposedly committed participant in the ISA process, praising the concept of sound international regulation and supporting developing countries.

It was always pushing the ISA for a lighter and quicker version of that regulation, to the point where its sponsor Nauru triggered the two year rule to allow them to start mining even though the regulations were unfinished.

Yet because it still couldn’t practically capitalise on that, it has now abandoned multilateralism, as well as its erstwhile Pacific partners.

Obligation to Uphold the Law

TMC needs to provide returns for its investors before it runs out of money. It says a U.S. application is about creating certainty for those investors. But there is nothing certain about pushing forward under an unrecognised, untested legal regime, with no multilateral backing nor communal consent.

As TMC has even had to admit, all 170 Member States who are parties of UNCLOS (most of the world outside of the US!) have a duty not to recognise any unilateral mining in international waters. It is the collective responsibility of the international community to uphold and enforce these obligations.

This means any international partner, investor, insurer, customer or even director should be liable to legal action if TMC starts mining.

This is a wake-up call. If investors, end-users and governments don’t step up now, the precedent will be set: companies can bypass global systems to mine the deep sea on their own terms. We need more than statements.

We need to tell anyone doing business with TMC it cannot illegally destroy the ocean.

See the other parts here:  Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4