Following Costa Rica's decision to impose requirements on the entry of avocados grown in Honduras, Costa Rican businessmen believe that these unilateral measures could generate trade retaliation for the country.
Arguing that molecular biology tests detected the presence of the Avocado Sunblotch viroid in shipments from Honduras, the Costa Rican State Phytosanitary Service (SFE) decided to start taking samples to analyze Honduran avocados.
As a result of the blockade that has been in place since July 2020 on the entry of animal products from Costa Rica into the Panamanian market, Costa Rican exports to Panama are reported to have fallen and companies such as Dos Pinos are reporting losses in the millions.
The trade conflict began when Panama informed the National Animal Health Service (SENASA), an agency of Costa Rica's Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG), of the decision not to extend export authorization to a list of previously authorized Costa Rican establishments that have been trading in the Panamanian market for many years.
The company Oceana Gold has paid the $8 million it owed because of the international arbitration case it lost against the Salvadoran state and has announced that it has no plans to continue mining activities in the country.
With the payment of $8 million plus interest, an end has been brought to the litigation that began years ago between Pacifi Rim, now Oceana Gold, and the Salvadoran state.
The Public Prosecutor's Office has frozen the company's property, vehicles and bank accounts, because it has not yet paid the $8 million plus interest owed from an international arbitration case which it lost to the Salvadoran State.
From a statement issued by the Attorney General of El Salvador:
The Attorney General of the Republic managed to freeze buildings, vehicles and bank accounts owned by the mining company Oceana Gold, formerly Pacific Rim, for non-payment of court costs to the State of El Salvador, under an international arbitration case initiated by the mining company with the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), which it lost and in which it was ordered to pay eight million dollars for expenses incurred by the country.
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Arbitrators working under the framework of DR-CAFTA have ruled that Costa Rican exports within this trade agreement in El Salvador should receive the tariff preferences provided for in the text.
From a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Trade of Costa Rica (COMEX):
Defending the interests of the country as part of the effective administration of the treaty
The accusation of blackmail hanging over the Spanish construction company Sacyr in its proceedings related to the Canal expansion, casts a shadow over all firms of the same nationality.
An article printed in Spanish media outlet Invertia.com says "concerns of Spanish employers established in Panama have increased after the Canal Administrator Jorge Luis Quijano, censored the behavior of the construction firm Sacyr."
The Salvadoran President has asked the SIECA to intervene in a trade dispute with Costa Rica.
President Mauricio Funes, believes that a regional agency should resolve the trade dispute with Costa Rica, which has requested the creation of an international arbitration group. The problem, Funes said, should be resolved by the Secretariat for Central American Economic Integration (SIECA).
Having glossed over the Bechtel report on technical deficiencies in the very cheap proposal made by Grupo Unidos por el Canal for the Canal expansion, the project could now turn out to be very expensive for the ACP.
At the time of the award of the construction works on the Panama Canal expansion to the consortium Grupo Unidos por el Canal (GUPC), the efforts made by the U.S.
As a precaution against the conflict not being resolved with the construction consortium, the Panama Canal Authority is already planning for the expansion works to carry on under its management.
The administrator of the ACP, Jorqe Quijano, announced that on Monday January 13 there will be a meeting with Zurich, the project's insurer, noting that the Canal Authority has $548 million available for the financing of the work in letters of credit and $442 million in reserve.
The facts seem to bear out what was said in 2009 -according to WikiLeaks- by the U.S. ambassador, who described Sacyr as "a bankrupt company sustained only by the Spanish government."
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.
Judicially enforcing a contract takes 1402 days in Guatemala, 920 in Honduras, 852 in Costa Rica, 786 in El Salvador, 686 in Panama, and 409 in Nicaragua.
The data comes from the 2014 Doing Business report by the World Bank.
The extreme difficulty of enforcing contracts by means of the administration of justice systems is endemic in Latin America, which, as stated an article in Miamiherald.com by Andres Oppenheimer, contributes "to slow economic growth."
Transnational oil and mining companies are taking states to international arbitration where "they get money that they did not even invest."
So says Manuel Perez Rocha, coordinator of the Network for Justice in Global Investment in Washington, who explains that when a Latin American state suspends exploration or exploitation permits, multinationals always manage to extract profits from international courts, particularly the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).
Arbitration between the Salvadoran government and the mining company Pacific Rim is in its final stages at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes.
The Canadian mining company received authorization to operate the El Dorado mine in 2002, during the administration of President Francisco Flores, but his successor Antonio Saca announced - and followed through on - that he would not authorize any mining project, a position also held by the current President Mauricio Funes.
The Congress of El Salvador is evaluating implementing a tax which would in principle would apply only to LaGeo, a subsidiary of the Italian company Enel.
Against the backdrop of the dispute between the Government and the Italian company Enel over the capitalization of the geothermal LaGeo, "...an ad-hoc committee of the Legislature which is studying the LaGeo concession, the only cmpany with state permission to exploit subterranean heat sources, has proposed a series of amendments to the Electricity Law, including a tax that would be incurred by the activity of the geothermal company. "
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