Alleged Greenwashing by Infinito Gold

The controversial Canadian company at the center of the Crucitas open pit mining scandal stands to lose the land it acquired in San Carlos after a series of courtroom defeats. By order of the First Civil Circuit Court of Costa Rica, Infinito Gold must forfeit the land it purchased years ago near the San Juan River. The six plots of land are being held by the court as surety for a judgment that the company must pay in the amount of 118 million colones (about $219K) to a couple of university professors that the Infinito Gold unsuccessfully sued for defamation.

The matter of Infinito Gold v. the two professors from the University of Costa Rica has been previously covered at length by The Costa Rica Star. Here’s an excerpt from an October 2012 article:

While trying to convince the University of Costa Rica to block one of its biology professors, Jorge Lobo, from teaching a course centered around its open-pit mining project, the company’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Industrias Infinito S.A., brought a court case against Mr. Lobo and asked for $1 million in compensation—a case it lost on Oct. 19.

Mr. Lobo said the court dispute Infinito lost on Oct. 19 was a criminal defamation case against him, for what he said were comments he made about his environmental concerns related to the company’s activities, featured in a Spanish-language documentary movie titled Fool’s Gold.

Nicolas Boeglin, a law professor at the university who also spoke in the film, is facing a court battle with the company as well.

The contentious Crucitas affair is also unfolding before the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. The company is actually suing the government of Costa Rica for a billion dollars, a matter that has come at a deep embarrassment for thousands of Canadians who petitioned Infinito Gold to stop its pursuit of a case that many legal analysts have deemed lost a long time ago. The company believes it was railroaded by a foundation chaired by former President Oscar Arias, who issued a decree to allow gold mining in Crucitas; however, that edict has been superseded by means of a judicial and democratic process that essentially bans open pit mining.

Source: El Pais