"Costa Rica wins arbitration case over open-pit gold mine," 4 June 2021

An international arbitration panel ruled Costa Rica does not owe Canadian miner Infinito Gold compensation after the cancellation of a mining project a decade ago...

Infinito Gold sought about $400 million in damages in the long-running case over its Crucitas open-pit mine in Alajuela province, near the border with Nicaragua, which was fiercely opposed by environmental activists seeking to strengthen the country’s ecological stewardship. The ruling was made by the Washington-based International Center for Settlement (ICSID), affiliated with the World Bank, but has not been made public...

In a company statement sent to Reuters, Infinito Gold pointed to the arbitration ruling’s finding that Costa Rica violated the terms of a Costa Rica-Canada investor protection deal, which it said should take precedence over national law...

Environment Minister Andrea Meza, meanwhile, argued that the arbitrators “recognized that it’s legitimate for a country to declare itself free of open-pit metals mining as a sovereign objective to protect the environment,” according to a statement... the ruling determined that Costa Rican authorities did not deny due process to Infinito Gold through the country’s courts...