World Bank court orders Pakistan pay $5.8 billion damages to Tethyan Copper
The World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) ruled against Pakistan in 2017, but until now had yet to determine the damages owed to Tethyan.
Tethyan board chair William Hayes said in a statement the company was still “willing to strike a deal with Pakistan,” but added that “it would continue protecting its commercial and legal interests until the dispute was over.”
The Reko Diq mine has become a test case for Prime Minister Imran Khan’s ability to attract serious foreign investment to Pakistan as it struggles to stave off an economic crisis that has forced it to seek an International Monetary Fund bailout.
Pakistan’s military sees Reko Diq as a strategic national asset and had taken a key role in its development amid the dispute with Antofagasta and Barrick, sources familiar with the situation told Reuters earlier this year.
Reporting by Dave Sherwood; Editing by Daniel Wallis
Hindustan Times: Pakistan told to pay $6 billion fine in mining disput
This comes at a sensitive time for Pakistan, which earlier this month signed a $6 billion bailout agreement with the International Monetary Fund to stave off a looming balance of payments crisis.
WORLD Updated: Jul 15, 2019 07:49 IST
Islamabad
An international arbitration court has imposed $5.976 billion penalty on Pakistan for the unlawful denial of a mining lease to a company for the Reko Diq project in 2011.
The Tethyan Copper Company – a joint venture between Chilean mining company Antofagasta and Canada’s Barrick Gold Corporation – had filed claims before the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in 2012 after the Balochistan government rejected a leasing request from the company. In its 700-page ruling, the tribunal awarded a $ 4.08 billion penalty and $1.87 billion in interests, Dawn reported.
The company had claimed $11.43 billion in damages. Tethyan Copper discovered vast mineral wealth more than a decade ago in Reko Diq, at the foot of an extinct volcano near Pakistan’s frontier with Iran and Afghanistan.
On Sunday, Pakistan said it welcomed a statement by Tethyan Copper expressing willingness for a negotiated settlement. The government said it was disappointed by the ruling but had taken note of a statement from Tethyan Copper’s chairman expressing willingness to seek a negotiated settlement.
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