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Venezuela says $1.4 bln Crystallex award 'unfair'

Published 2016-04-14, 04:47 p/m
© Reuters. Venezuela says $1.4 bln Crystallex award 'unfair'

CARACAS, April 14 (Reuters) - Venezuela said on Thursday
that a $1.4 billion award to Canada's Crystallex International
Corp for the expropriation of a mining project was "unfair and
disproportionate."
The World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of
Investment Disputes this month ordered Venezuela to pay the sum
as compensation for expropriating the Las Cristinas gold project
that former president Hugo Chavez's government took over in
2008.
"The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela expresses its
disagreement with the ruling," said a statement from the
Attorney General's Office, noting there had been "fatal errors"
in the methodology used.
"The Republic will use the legal resources at its
disposition to weaken the evidently unfair and disproportionate
decision."
Las Cristinas was Crystallex's flagship project and at the
time was regarded as one of the world's biggest undeveloped gold
deposits with estimated gold reserves of 12.5 million ounces.
But development was delayed for years by legal disputes and
permitting hold-ups.
The award to Crystallex follows that made by the same
tribunal in 2014 to another small Canadian miner, Gold Reserve,
which was awarded around $750 million for the 2009 termination
of its Las Brisas concession in Venezuela.
Gold Reserve and Venezuela, which is strapped for funds at a
time of low oil prices, triple-digit inflation and heavy debt
payments due this year, had been in a dispute over the payment
until February this year when they reached a deal to jointly
exploit the Brisas and Las Cristinas projects.

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