NEW YORK: Wall Street hedge funds and lawyers have turned an arcane procedure of international treaties into a money machine, at the cost of the world`s poorest people. The latest shakedown is a $5.9 billion award against Pakistan`s government in favour of two global mining companies Antofagasta PLC of Chile and Barrick Gold Corporation of Canada for a project that was never approved by Pakistan and never carried out.
Here are the facts.
In 1993, a US-incorporated mining company, BHP, entered into a joint venture (JV) with the Balochistan Development Authority (BDA), a public corporation in Pakistan`s impoverished Balochistan province. The JV was set up to prospect for gold and copper, and in the event of favourable discoveries, to seek a mining license. BHP was not optimistic about the project`s prontabihty and dragged its feet on exploration. In the early 2000s, it assigned the prospecting rights to an Australian company, which created Tethyan Copper Company (TCC) for the project.
