Pacific Rim survives first round in CAFTA arbitration

Pacific Rim, the Canadian mining company which wants to open a gold mine in El Salvador, survived an initial attempt to dismiss its lawsuit against the government of El Salvador. On Monday, August 2, 2010, the international arbitration tribunal hearing the claim issued a ruling on preliminary objections filed by the government of El Salvador to the complaint. The tribunal overruled the objections and will allow Pacific Rim to proceed to an evidence stage in the action. This was a preliminary procedural ruling -- the tribunal rules on whether Pacific Rim may pursue its claim by assuming all facts in the written complaint are true and considering only any other facts which are not disputed by the parties. The tribunal went to some length to explain that it was not ruling on the merits of Pacific Rim's claims, but only ruling that its written complaint contained sufficient allegations to proceed to the next phase which will include hearing witnesses and receiving evidence.

A complete copy of the decision is available here.