MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Spanish company begins legal actions against Chile

After ten years of differences with the Chilean government over allotment of Southern hake quotas a Spanish fishery group has requested arbitration hearings from an international body to begin legal actions against the Chilean State.

The Spanish company Concar is demanding compensation from the Chilean government for the financial losses accrued during the freeze of activities imposed on two Concar factory vessels operating in the Beagle Canal zone.

According to Punta Arenas daily La Prensa Austral, the Spanish group Concar belonging to Eduardo Vieira S.A. presented their claim last February 27 before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) a branch from the multilateral organization World Bank in Washington.

The application of the so-called Fishery Cut Law 19.849, at the start of 2001, suspended operations in Chilean inland waters for the two vessels belonging to CONCAR as well as six others of different companies. These vessels were forced to move to open sea, with quotas assigned according to their catches of 1999-2000. The decision condemned Concar and the other six companies to insufficient total admissible catch (TAC).

Chilean Fisheries Under-secretary Felipe Sandoval has avoided making any comments arguing it's too early to discuss the legal matters involved in the case.

La Prensa Austral reports that the Eduardo Vieira group seated in Vigo has an annual turnover of 120 million Euros, and is among the first in Spain with affiliates in Namibia, Senegal, Argentina, Peru and Chile. COncar's main offices are in Punta Arenas with the main processing plant in Puerto Williams. The two Chilean licenced vessels involved in the demand are the "Antonio Lorenzo" currently detained in the French colony of Reunion Island and "María Tamara" that sometime ago left for Spain.

(FIS/MP).