Mexico loses millionaire arbitration –

MEXICO CITY (El Universal).— The International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (Icsid) resolved that the Mexican government must pay 37.1 million dollars plus interest to the mining company Odyssey.

The arbitrator asked to pay said amount plus annual interest at the rate of Mexican Treasury bonds, starting on October 12, 2018, until the time the total compensation is paid, that is, interest of around 10% must be paid.

Additionally, you must pay the arbitrators’ fees and administrative costs of the process that began on September 4, 2020.

The arbitration was carried out by the company Exploraciones Oceánicas, a subsidiary of Odyssey Marine Exploration, against Mexico for rejecting the environmental impact project to carry out mining exploitation on the seabed and thus extract phosphatic sands off the coast of Baja California.

In this regard, the mining company noted that “today’s ruling validates our position that Mexico’s environmental agency, Semarnat, unfairly denied our environmental permit that received extensive input from external advisors and industry experts to determine an economically viable development plan. viable and environmentally responsible,” said Odyssey Marine Exploration CEO and Chairman of the Board Mark Gordon.

The director of the mining company said that “the project remains strategically important and commercially viable.”

This arbitration case was initiated under chapter seven of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), now the Treaty between Mexico, the United States and Canada (T-MEC), after in 2016 the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) refused to grant them the environmental permit.

Due to the above, a federal court of administrative justice asked the agency to reinstate the process and also to reassess the project, which was rejected for a second time. After this happened, the company decided to initiate arbitration which it finally won.