Panama has agreed to pay $26 million to settle a dispute with Dominion Mineral Corp. after losing an arbitration award in 2020 over the US mining company’s copper-gold exploration licences, according to La Estrella de Panamá.
The claim arose after the Panama refused to extend a mining exploration concession for the Cerro Chorcha project, held by Dominion’s local subsidiary Cuprum under a 2006 contract with Panama. The contract had an initial period of four years with the possibility of renewal for two additional 2-year terms.
However, the Ministry of Commerce and Industries in 2010 rejected Cuprum’s extension application after declaring Cerro Chorcha to be a “mineral reserve” area on which all exploration or extraction work was prohibited. In 2016, the case was brought to the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), which subsequently ruled that Panama was responsible for the “unlawful expropriation” of Dominon’s mining investments in the country.
For the rest of this article: https://www.mining.com/panama-agrees-26m-payment-to-settle-dispute-with-us-miner/