A court denied Mexico’s request to reverse an award that obliges it to pay 47 million dollars to the Canadian company Lion Mexico Consolidated.
This investment fund claimed that it did not receive fair and equitable treatment in the conflict surrounding an investment that it started in Nayarit, so it filed a claim in 2015, under Chapter 11 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
The story began in 2007, when Lion financed with more than 32 million dollars a project by the companies C&C Engineering and C&C Capital, both companies of Héctor Cárdenas Curiel, who received the loan to develop a real estate project in Nayarit.
According to the US Court for the District of Columbia, although promissory notes were issued and the properties were mortgaged, Cárdenas Curiel did not pay the investment fund, so the Canadian company filed a criminal complaint.
Lion accused Cárdenas Curiel of engaging in “a complex judicial fraud” to evade payment obligations, which included forging the signatures of the plaintiff company’s lawyer, among other actions for which the cancellation of the promissory notes and the mortgage was requested.
Lion requested arbitration under the NAFTA in 2015
After a series of injunctions that prevented the resolution of the case, in 2015, the Canadian company decided to go to arbitration under the then NAFTA, so it presented its case to the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes.
Initially Lion requested 220 million dollars, but in September 2021 the court ordered Mexico to pay 47 million dollars in compensation; 583 thousand dollars in costs, 1 million 725 thousand dollars for lawyers, plus interest.
On December 6, 2021, Mexico asked to reverse that award, but on February 4, 2022, Lion asked to confirm the resolution. After the review, the court finally decided to confirm the ruling, under which Mexico must pay close to 50 million dollars.
Source: eluniversal
