I think that Barricks auditors Price Waterhouse Coopers were going to force ( or did force) Barrick into realizing the $ 5.6 Billion dollar loss on their hedges that they have been deferring all these years and the company put the spin on it that they wanted to pay off their hedges.

I don't know how Price Waterhouse Coopers let them go so many years without reporting the loss in the financial statements. In the past they just allowed a footnote about the "Mark to Market" loss which was very misleading.

We will see just how much of the 9.5 million ounces of hedges Barrick really pays off in the next couple of months.