Snapshot: In September 2010, a lawsuit was filed in Canada by the widow of a Q’eqchi community leader, Ich Chamán, who was severely beaten and shot in 2009 during a protest against the Fenix mine. The lawsuit was settled in October 2024. Ich Chamán was part of the Mayan Q’eqchi’ community of El Estor, whose members have long opposed the Fenix project. Most of the Q’eqchi’ community rejects the legitimacy of the mining concession and related land rights granted by the Guatemalan Government, arguing that the concession was issued without proper consultation, as required under both national and international legal standards. They maintain that the project encroaches on their ancestral lands and have actively resisted its development and the forced displacement of their homes and community.

Other lawsuits related to the project: Hudbay Minerals lawsuit (re rape & sexual assault in Guatemala, filed in Canada), Hudbay Minerals lawsuit (re shooting at Fenix mine, Guatemala, filed in Canada).

A lawsuit was filed in Canada in September 2010 by the widow of a Q’eqchi community leader, Ich Chamán, who was severely beaten and shot in 2009 during a protest against the Fenix mine. His widow, Angelina Choc (who is also a plaintiff in the March 2011 lawsuit), claims that security guards from the Fenix project violently beat and shot Chamán, who was unarmed, and killed him. The plaintiff alleged that Hudbay Minerals failed to take adequate precautions to ensure human rights abuses would be not be perpetrated by its security personnel.

On 22 July 2013 the Superior Court of Ontario ruled that the lawsuits can proceed to trial in Canadian court.

On 7 October 2024, the parties announced that a settlement without admission of liability on the part of the company was agreed for the 13 plaintiffs in the three lawsuits related to alleged abuses at the Fenix mine.

In January 2021, Mynor Padilla, the former Security Chief of the Fenix Project, pled guilty in Guatemalan court to murdering the Indigenous leader Ich Chamán. Advisors of Hudbay Minerals commented that this ruling had no effect on the lawsuits in Canada.

-Hudbay Minerals settles civil lawsuits regarding former operations in Guatemala, Canadian Press, 7 Oct 2024

- [PDF] Ontario court rules that lawsuits against Hudbay Minerals regarding shootings, murder and gang-rape at its former mine in Guatemala can proceed to trial in Canada, 22 Jul 2013

- “Guatemalan widow's lawsuit against Hudbay could be precedent setting”, Matthew Hill, Mining Weekly, 18 Feb 2011
- “Widow files $12M suit against mining company”, CBC News, 2 Dec 2010

- [PDF] Choc v. Hudbay Minerals Inc. - Endorsement, 22 Jul 2013 [Supreme Court of Justice - Ontario]

[PDF] Choc v Hudbay Minerals Inc., HMI Nickel Inc. and Compania Guatemalteca de Niquel S.A., 24 Sep 2010 [filed in Ontario Superior Court of Justice]

Hudbay

- Hudbay Reaches a Mutually Agreed Settlement in Longstanding Civil Lawsuits Related to Former Guatemala Operations, 7 Oct 2024

-  Hudbay Responds to Allegations in Statement of Claim, 29 Mar 2011
-  The facts: Hudbay's former operations in Guatemala 

Plaintiffs' lawyers: Klippensteins Barristers & Solicitors, Rights Action,

-Guatemalan Plaintiffs reach fair and reasonable settlement in Canadian mining lawsuits, 7 Oct 2024