Crystallex International Corp. v. Petróleos De Venezuela, S.A.

Crystallex, a Canadian company, owned the exclusive rights to Las Cristinas, a gold mine in the Republic of Venezuela (“Venezuela”). According to the ccimplaint, the mine has one of the largest unmined gold reserves in the world, between 17 and 26 million ounces of. gold. For nearly a decade, Crystallex invested more than $640 million to develop the mine. However, despite Crystallex’s many applications, Venezuela never issued the permits needed to extract and sell gold. Eventually, claiming that Crystallex had stalled progress on the mine’s development, Venezuela terminated Crystallex’s…