April 5 (Reuters) - A World Bank tribunal has ordered
Venezuela to pay damages of nearly $1.4 billion to Crystallex
International Corp, a Canadian mining company, as compensation
for expropriating the miner's Las Cristinas mining project,
Crystallex said on Tuesday.
The $1.386 billion award was released on Monday by the World
Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment
Disputes, the company said in a statement.
Venezuela's Oil and Mining Ministry did not immediately
respond to a request for comment.
Crystallex filed its arbitration request on Feb. 16, 2011
after former president Hugo Chavez's government took over the
gold project in 2008 as part of a plan to put key industries
into state hands.
The miner last November filed a complaint in a U.S. court,
seeking to recover $2.8 billion it says it is owed from
Venezuela's state-run oil company PDVSA and its U.S. subsidiary.