According to an article in Laestrella.com.pa, Luis Del Rivero, ex president of the Spanish company Sacyr, said "You cannot go for two and a half years without having resolved an issue, if an advance has been given, and you live with the terms of the advance, you can not then put a gun to someones head to demand more money. "

Del Rivero remarked that Sacyr was formed with an advance of $800 million contributed by the Panama Canal Authority, and in the end ran out of money.

"... In 2011, when the constructor Murcia was removed from Sacyr - Vallehermoso because of a clash between the construction company and Repsol, which arose from the union of Sacyr with Pemex to gain control of the Spanish oil company- it had amounts in advance worth $800 million which it had received from the ACP group. But two years later this money seems to have mutated into a lack of liquidity that is justified in a list of complaints where all the numbers are doubled. "

Source: laestrella.com.pa

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The dialogue regarding the cost overruns in the construction of the canal expansion project between the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) and the consortium Grupo Unidos por el Canal (GUPC)-initiated by the intervention of the Spanish Minister of Development- has been interrupted, and it is not longer the Spanish group Sacyr the spokeshead but instead it is now the other majority company in the Consortium, Italy's Impregilo, which is asking - via the media- for $1 billion from the ACP, while keeping up its threat to stop the work.

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