"Consultation starts in Guatemala over future of Pan American Silver’s Escobal mine", 23 February 2024

"The Xinka Parliament of Guatemala announced this week the start of a court-ordered consultation over the future of Pan American Silver’s (TSE, NYSE: PAAS) Escobal mine, according to a release from US environmental organization Earthworks.

Once the world’s third-largest silver mine, Escobal was acquired by Pan American through its $1 billion takeover of Tahoe Resources in 2018. A year prior, Tahoe was forced to halt operations at Escobal after Guatemala’s Supreme Court suspended the mine licence.

That decision supported a claim brought by environment and human rights group CALAS against the country’s Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM), alleging it violated the local Indigenous people’s right of consultation in advance of granting the Escobal mining licence to Tahoe’s Guatemalan subsidiary...

The Constitutional Court’s ruling ordered MEM to carry out a consultation with the local Indigenous population, the Xinka communities, and it also upheld the licence suspension for Tahoe’s smaller Juan Bosco mine...

No timeline has been set for a completion of the consultation process or a restart of operations."