Canadian mining company Pacific Rim Mining has sued El Salvador government claiming $315m towards damages through its US subsidiary PacRim Cayman.
The company claims that the federal government has failed to grant necessary mining licenses for its El Dorado gold project violating the Salvadoran Investment Law (SIL).
The Arbitration, now in its final, is currently being heard under the SIL by a panel of three members at the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington, DC.
Pacific Rim Mining president and CEO Tom Shrake stated that the company is confident of the merits of its case and it would receive fair value for expropriated assets.
"Because of a pattern of mistreatment of foreign investors by the Government of El Salvador, the country is now the single worst jurisdiction in all of Latin America in attracting foreign investment and the slowest growing economy in Central America for the eighth
consecutive year," noted Shrake.
The El Dorado mine would have been in operation if the government had granted the license on time, added the company.