[miningmx.com] — ANGLO American Sur (AAS) CEO Miguel Angel Duran has signalled a chance of tone in the company’s heated dispute with Chile’s Codelco, saying Anglo would seek to have talks with the state-owned copper miner before the end of the week.
His comments came after Anglo American accused Codelco and some Chilean officials of perpetrating “a brutal act of abuse of power against a law-abiding foreign company’ in court documents appealing an injunction on the sale of further stakes in AAS, as reported by Chile’s La Tercera on Wednesday.
Codelco said it asked for the injunction to protect its rights under an option to buy 49% of AAS, following a $5.39bn transaction between parent company Anglo American and Japanese trading house Mitsubishi for a 24.5% stake in the copper producing company.
For its part, Anglo threatened to invoke a bilateral British-Chilean trade protection agreement, whereby the disagreement could go to international arbitration at the World Bank’s International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes.
However, in an interview published by La Tercera on Thursday, Duran said the best way forward was “to sit down and talk with Codelco’.
Still, he warned Anglo American would not be swayed from its position that it would always hold at least 51% of AAS. “What remains is the complement of the figure (24.5%) for Codelco,’ he said.
Asked whether he feared a backlash in public reaction to Anglo American over the Mitsubishi deal, Duran said it was important for the dispute to be resolved as quickly as possible.
ABSURD
Codelco CEO Diego Hernandez told the newspaper that Anglo’s intent to drag the case to an international court was “absurd’. “This contract was concluded in Chile, under Chilean law, and if there is any differenc of interpretation it must be resolved here,’ he said.
