Pakistan will have to pay almost $6 billion in damages to a foreign gold mining firm whose dig was shut down by the government in 2011, the World Bank said on Sunday.
The consortium Tethyan Copper company is the largest Foreign Direct Investment mining project in the country.
More than a decade ago the group found vast gold and copper deposits at Reko Diq, in the turbulent southwestern Baluchistan province, and had planned a hugely lucrative open-pit mine. But the project came to a standstill in 2011 after the local government refused to renew the consortium's lease, and in 2013 Pakistan’s top court declared it invalid.
On Friday, the World Bank’s international arbitration tribunal committee awarded $5.84 billion in damages to Tethyan, according to a statement from the company, because of the government’s decision to shut down the mine.
Pakistan Attorney General Anwar Mansoor Khan said in a statement they had noted the decision “with disappointment”. Legal experts were “studying the award and reflecting upon its financial and legal implications,” the statement continued.
