{"id":3789,"date":"2024-02-02T12:09:25","date_gmt":"2024-02-02T10:09:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/miningwatch.ro\/?p=3789"},"modified":"2024-02-02T14:44:20","modified_gmt":"2024-02-02T12:44:20","slug":"rosia-montana-transparenta-promisa-de-premierul-ciolacu-e-un-mar-otravit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/miningwatch.ro\/en\/rosia-montana-transparenta-promisa-de-premierul-ciolacu-e-un-mar-otravit\/","title":{"rendered":"Rosia Montana – The price of corruption"},"content":{"rendered":"Cluj-Napoca\/Rom\u00e2nia, 2 February 2024 – <\/span><\/i>Romania\u2019s government released statements regarding the Award in the arbitration case Gabriel Resources vs. Romania; including a minimal amount of US$2bn that Romania needs to pay to Gabriel Resources. This likely means that the arbitral tribunal has reached a decision and shared the Award with both parties. If both parties agree, it will publish the full Award. If either party objects, only excerpts will be published. According to media reports quoting government sources, this is to happen on 10 February 2024.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u2018<\/span>Gabriel Resources vs. Romania<\/span><\/a>\u2019 arbitral case is about a joint venture to develop Europe’s largest open-cast gold\/silver mine. Strong local opposition emerged in 2000 when Rosia Montana Gold Corporation (RMGC), the joint venture between Gabriel Resources (80%) and the Romanian state (-20%), announced its intentions to destroy much of the historic village of Rosia Montana, resettle the local population and use large quantities of cyanide to separate the ore from the gold. <\/span>Resistance <\/span><\/a>spread across the country with many associating the venture with corruption; including at the highest political level. Litigation activities evidencing how authorities and ministries attempted to green-light a proposal that runs against multiple Romanian and European legislation only brought to light further irregularities such as a <\/span>US$70mio cooperation contract<\/span><\/a> between Gabriel Resources\u00a0 (\u2018Gabriel\u2019) and Kelemen Hunor\u2019s ministry of Culture in return for supporting the issuance of the outstanding or irregular permits. Final court rulings had stalled the proposal from 2007 onwards.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Pressured by Gabriel, the then Prime Minister Victor Ponta, in 2013 proposed a <\/span>special law<\/span><\/a> to rank the commercial mine proposal of overriding national interest. It gave rise to unprecedented citizens\u2019 mobilization known as \u2018<\/span>Romania\u2019s autumn<\/span><\/a>.\u2019 Mr Ponta\u2019s special law failed to pass and in 2015 Gabriel Resources initiated arbitration at the World Bank ICSID tribunal in Washington D.C.. Quoting UK and Canada free trade agreements endorsed by <\/span>Adriean Videanu<\/span> and Teodor Mele\u0219canu, Gabriel has been rumored to claim <\/span>US $6.5 billion <\/span><\/a>in damages for losing its investment and profit because the special law didn\u2019t pass. According to recent <\/span>media reports<\/span><\/a>, Romania will need to compensate Gabriel in the region of US$2bn or more.<\/span><\/p>\n

Given the public interest in the case and the amount at stake, the Romanian government did not communicate any permissible case updates; despite claiming transparency. During the arbitration timeline, Romanian NGOs submitted a total of 3 <\/span>amicus curiae<\/span><\/i> briefs.<\/span> An amicus curiae (literally “friend of the court”) is <\/span>someone who is not a party to a case, but offers information that bears on the case<\/span>.<\/span> Two briefs were accepted of which one in part but the third one, submitted in June 2023 was rejected after Romania didn\u2019t move for it to be included despite being asked by the Tribunal. (see links below)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>The third amicus curiae brief showed how Gabriel\u2019s timeline to calculate compensation failed to reflect a significant risk. It didn\u2019t tell shareholders that its project design required the mine proposal to be declared of national interest to be permissible under EU and Romanian laws. We believe that if Gabriel\u2019s shareholders had known of that inherent risk, then the share price would have been lower and hence also the compensation based on it<\/span><\/i>,\u201d comments Stephanie Roth, a volunteer of the \u2018Save Rosia Montana!\u2019 campaign, on behalf of the NGOs that had submitted the <\/span>amicus curiae<\/span><\/i> briefs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Gabriel requested a secret Agreement and special law because it knew that its proposal ran against applicable laws. Gabriel also knew that, should it not receive what it needed, it could use arbitration to get its profit that way. Some call this a \u2018win-win\u2019 situation. If Romania decides to accept the Award and pays compensation to Gabriel Resources, then this is the price of corruption. Rather than paying it from much needed budgetary items, the ones responsible should pay. For example, redirecting the special pensions budget to pay Gabriel Resources not only is the right thing to do; it might help those responsible understand to respect the dignity of its citizens and not commit such injustices against them<\/span><\/i>,\u201d adds Roxana Pencea Bradatan, of Mining Watch Romania.<\/span><\/p>\n

First amicus curiae<\/a> (2018)
\nSecond amicus curiae<\/a> (2022)
\nThird amicus curiae<\/a> (2023)","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cluj-Napoca\/Rom\u00e2nia, 2 February 2024 – Romania\u2019s government released statements regarding the Award in the arbitration case Gabriel Resources vs. Romania; including a minimal amount of US$2bn that Romania needs to pay to Gabriel Resources. This likely means that the arbitral tribunal has reached a decision and shared the Award with both parties. If both parties […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3790,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rosia-montana","8":"category-stiri"},"yoast_head":"\nRosia Montana - The price of corruption - Mining Watch Romania<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/miningwatch.ro\/en\/rosia-montana-transparenta-promisa-de-premierul-ciolacu-e-un-mar-otravit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rosia Montana - The price of corruption - Mining Watch Romania\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Cluj-Napoca\/Rom\u00e2nia, 2 February 2024 – Romania\u2019s government released statements regarding the Award in the arbitration case Gabriel Resources vs. Romania; including a minimal amount of US$2bn that Romania needs to pay to Gabriel Resources. 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