Romania wins legal battle against a Canadian miner over failed plans to open a gold mine

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — The Romanian authorities has gained a yearslong authorized dispute with a Canadian mining firm looking for damages over failed plans to open a gold and silver mine within the Japanese European nation.

Gabriel Sources was looking for $4.4 billion (4 billion euros) in damages from the Romanian state, which owned a 20% stake within the mining venture in Rosia Montana, a mountainous western area that accommodates a few of Europe’s largest gold deposits. The Romanian authorities withdrew its help for the venture in 2014.

The federal government stated that the ruling late Friday by the Washington-based Worldwide Centre for Settlement of Funding Disputes ordered Gabriel Sources to reimburse its authorized prices for the arbitration case the Canadian miner launched in 2015.

Romania’s Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu stated it could have been unfair for Romanian residents to be burdened with excessive prices a loss would have incurred. “I thank the crew of attorneys who represented Romania with professionalism,” he stated after the ruling.

The choice got here 25 years after Gabriel Sources gained concession rights for the mining venture that deliberate to extract gold and silver over a 16-year interval. It will have concerned razing 4 mountain tops, displacing a whole bunch of households and forsaking a waste lake containing cyanide, a poisonous chemical used within the technique of gold extraction.

The venture drew sturdy opposition from environmental and civic activists who helped manage protests that drew tens of hundreds of individuals to Romania’s streets in 2013. Gabriel Sources stated the venture would have supplied jobs in an space the place employment alternatives are scarce.

Rosia Montana can also be house to historic Roman mining galleries, which had been added to UNESCO’s World Heritage record in 2021.

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