Created: Oct 17, 2023 07:59 AM
Glencore Finance (Bermuda) is at Victoria Place, 31 Victoria Street, Hamilton (File photograph)
A Bermuda company has won an arbitration award of more than a quarter-billion dollars against a South American country.
The dispute, which stretches back more than 16 years, was initiated after Bolivia began unilaterally nationalising the country’s mining assets in 2007.
Bolivia is known for rich mineral deposits, including tin, silver, lithium and copper.
Glencore Finance (Bermuda) had invested in four mining assets: the Vinto Tin Smelter; the Antimony Smelter; tin concentrates stored at the Antimony Smelter; and the Colquiri Mine.
But Bolivia nationalised all three mines by supreme decrees between 2007 and 2012 and never paid Glencore any compensation, as required by a UK-Bolivian treaty.
Glencore has won the subsequent 2016 arbitration against the Plurinational State of Bolivia.
After seven years of the arbitration in Paris, the tribunal last month ordered Bolivia to pay Glencore more than $253 million in compensation for Bolivia’s treaty breaches, plus interest.
Glencore has now petitioned the US district court for the District of Columbia to recognise and enforce the arbitration award.
In filings obtained through Offshore Alert, the court noted Glencore’s investments in: the Colquiri Mine, which Glencore owned through its 100 per cent shareholding in the Bolivian company Compañía Minera Colquiri SA; the Vinto Tin Smelter, which Glencore owned through its 100 per cent shareholding in the Bolivian Company Metalúrgico Vinto SA; the Antimony Smelter, which Glencore owned through its 100 per cent shareholding in Colquiri, and the tin stock, which Glencore owned through its 100 per cent shareholding in Colquiri.
Bolivia has now filed a request for a correction of the award and Glencore has filed its own request for interpretation of aspects of the award.
The district court ruled that the arbitration award should be recognised and enforced pursuant to the New York Convention, an international treaty among more than 150 countries for the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards.
Judgment was entered against Bolivia for the full value of the award, $253,591,796.
The Glencore-owned Empresa Minera Colquiri was nationalised on June 21, 2012 by supreme decree (File photograph)
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