Chinalco could invest $426 million in Suriname bauxite project
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A court in the U.S. District of Columbia is allowing Canadian Crystallex the possibility of advancing in a legal dispute against Venezuela, following the expropriation of its assets in Las Cristinas gold mine in 2008.
The decision, which was made public last week, allows Crystallex to enforce in other U.S. jurisdictions a previous ruling issued in March by the same court. Such ruling upholds an award by a World Bank tribunal that orders Venezuela to pay the miner $1.2 billion in compensation plus $200 million in interest for what the Hugo Chávez government did at Las Cristinas.
Both the March and the June decisions are crucial steps in the company’s quest to seize Venezuelan assets in the United States. In fact, the Toronto-based firm could now seek an attachment of assets such as Citgo, a refining and marketing subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela PDVSA.
MINING.com approached Crystallex by email on June 13, 2017, and asked details about future legal actions regarding this case, but company representatives did not reply by publication time.
Reuters, on the other hand, requested a comment from Venezuela’s information ministry and did not get a response either.
Earlier this year, Crystallex also asked a U.S. District Court in Delaware for an injunction against PDVSA, arguing that it carried out $2.8 billion in operations involving Citgo and pledged Citgo shares to Russian oil firm Rosneft as a guarantee for a loan.
The miner calls these actions “an illegal transfer of assets” out of a U.S. subsidiary to avoid paying the compensation ordered by the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes.
Las Cristinas was Crystallex’s flagship project and it is considered one of the world’s largest undeveloped gold deposits with measured and indicated resources of 21 million ounces of gold containing 17 million ounces of proven and probable reserves.
3 Comments
Hugo Chavez
Good luck Crystalex. After the civil war in Venezuela is over, ( its just starting now), Then you will get some money back. Go socialism.
Art Easian
The government would rather continue to kill indigenous miners and pollute the jungle and rivers with mercury than to let a capitalist Company fix it and provide real safe long-term jobs. Way to go Venezuela ! Viva the Bolivarian revolution !
Stevestonite
I have Crystal Ball (Andrew Weaver) to thank for hyping this company constantly on the stock discussion boards as he helped turn us all into victims of what many believe is a scam. He was particularly fond of Roy Carson’s Venezuela headline news constant promo rubbish. I’m sure Andy lost a chunk of money in this fraud as did I and thousands of other investors. Millions of dollars were lost. Andy must still feel awful for unwittingly helping this fiasco in a big way. Anyway we assume Andy liked to gamble on small mining plays so it’s probably safe to say his Green Party won’t move against mining in BC. ….