International Arbitration Newsletter - April 2021 | Regional Overview: The Americas

CHILE

Chilean state mining company files an ICC claim against Ecuador and an Ecuadorian state mining company

Chilean company Codelco, one of the biggest copper mining companies in the world, has filed an ICC arbitration to compel Ecuador and Enami EP to fulfill their contractual obligations regarding the Llurimagua project.

Both Codelco and Enami EP are State-owned companies, which agreed on performing a joint mining project located in the province of Imbabura, next to Quito, Ecuador. This project is within multiple international agreements between Ecuador and Chile, which started in 2008. They agreed on the final terms of association in 2019.

Codelco pointed out that its Ecuadorian counterpart has not complied with the agreement reached in 2019 to jointly develop the project and, as a consequence, on April 8, 2021 decided to take the dispute to arbitration.

COLOMBIA

Colombian energy company files for arbitration against Chile

ISA Interchile, a local subsidiary of Grupo ISA, an energy company owned by the Colombian state, has filed a claim for Chile’s alleged violation of its free trade agreement with Colombia.

The arbitration concerns a 500-day delay in the US $ 1 billion Cardones-Polpaico electric grid project that Interchile was contracted to build and operate. ISA contends  that the delay was caused by a force majeure event (protests against the project). According to ISA, the Chilean administration fined ISA more than US $ 80 million for the delay.

This is just one more investment arbitration initiated against the South American State. Recently Chile was threatened by French and Italian investors operating Santiago’s international airport with another ICSID claim after their billion-dollar concession was hit by Chile’s measures in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it is not all bad news for the Chilean government who, at the beginning of the year, defeated a US $ 350 million ICSID claim filed by Colombian investors regarding a concession for the public bus service in Santiago.

PERU

New ICSID tribunals in investment arbitration against Peru

Two new investment arbitration tribunals administered by ICSID have recently been set up against Peru.

The first, in the dispute initiated by the mining company SMM Cerro Verde Netherlands and the second in the dispute initiated by the mining company Freeport-McMoran.

These two cases are added to the list of eleven ICSID arbitrations in force against Peru in which the respective arbitral tribunals were already formed. In two of the latter, our firm, through its Lima office, is advising Peru as local counsel: ICSID arbitration initiated by the energy companies Latam Hydro LLC and CH Mamacocha S.R.L., and ICSID arbitration initiated by the mining company Lupaka Gold Corp.

USA

Casino operator fails to ground plane

At the beginning of April, a US District Court for the Southern District of New York denied Global Gaming Philippines’ emergency motion to prevent an aircraft from leaving Newark’s Airport.

This motion was part of a plan to enforce an US $ 296 million award in damages issued against Bloomberry Resorts in an arbitration related to the management of a hotel and casino in Manila.

In Singapore, the Court of Appeal has recently quashed Bloomberry’s application to set aside the partial award on liability and an appeal to set aside the final award on damages is still pending before the same court.

In New York, Global Gaming requested the District Court to ground a plane owned by Bloomberry’s chairman who, according to Global Gaming, owns roughly 2/3 of Bloomberry’s common stock and has “formed a vast network of shell companies”.