This document is Socfin's response to Fian’s “Draft report extracts made available to Socfin before publication – Provisional title: Land Conflict in Malen – Analysis and lessons learned from a human perspective”. Socfin denies the allegation and argues (amongst other things) that they went through a lengthy process of consultation with the communities, resulting in an overall acceptance and support to the project. Socfin claims that the people were free to choose, and some decided not to adhere to the project and kept their land. They further argue that they had a full Environmental Social and Health Impact Assessment study, which was done by Star Consult in 2010-2011. This resulted in the Government of Sierra Leone granting Socfin three different land leases totalling 18473 hectares, since the Government of Sierra Leone leases the land from the landowners and then the Government of Sierra Leone sub-leases that land to Socfin. 

(From the article.)