Canadian mining company Crystallex International Corp. filed a request for arbitration against the Venezuelan government in an international court for the cancellation of the contract for the exploitation a gold mine, and demanded a compensation of more than US$3.8 billion, informed the company in a statement.

23/02/2011. Crystallex reported on Wednesday that they appeared before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), an autonomous institution of the World Bank, to demand that the Venezuelan government restore its investment and to be compensated for more than US$3.8 billion for the loss incurred by its operations in Venezuela.

The company claims that the Venezuelan government did not draw a proposal to solve a dispute over the gold mine Las Cristinas, on the southern-east state of Bolivar, which main assets are estimated to contain 481,000 grams (17 millions of ounces) of gold.

Crystallex, based in Toronto, announced earlier this month that it received a letter from the state Venezuelan Corporation of Guyana (CVG), informing that the contract which allowed it to run Las Cristinas has been “cancelled unilaterally”.

The corporation assured that it complied with the obligations stipulated in the contacts, that it had prepared the place, for it to be ready for the exploitation while waiting for a license from the Ministry of Environment, denied in April 2008.

President Hugo Chávez’s government did not issue a reaction regarding the case.

Last year, Chávez threatened to withdraw the concessions for gold mining in the country, accusing the mining of damaging the environment and of violating the workers’ rights.