A Macau-based company is suing the Laotian Government, claiming it illegally took 400 million dollars intended for investment

Laos government sued over investment ‘misconduct’

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source:  http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-17/an-lao-govt-sued-over-investment-misconduct/4206256

Updated Fri Aug 17, 2012 7:56pm AEST

A Macau-based company is suing the Laotian Government, claiming it illegally took 400 million dollars intended for investment.

Sanum Investments is behind several hotel and casino projects in Laos, including Savan Vegas in Savannakhet.

The company says it invested in Laos in good faith and accuses the government of breaking its promise to protect foreign investors against “greed and exploitation.”

Sanum says the government is guilty of misconduct for allowing a well-connected Laotian family and their companies to seize control of Sanum’s prize asset, the Thanaleng Slot Machine Club near the capital Vientiane.

Further accusations centre on a retroactive 23 million dollars tax bill, and the arbitrary revoking of licences and concessions worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The claims will be handled by the World Bank’s International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes using treaties signed by Laos.

Sanum’s president Jody Jordahl said the company had been left with no other option, after taking “every possible step” within Laos to negotiate a settlement.

“We’ve met with our minority partners, we’ve met with the government, we’ve gone through the office of economic dispute resolution, which is what’s called for in the dispute resolution clause, and we’ve gone through the courts and unfortunately have gotten nowhere,” he told Radio Australia’s Connect Asia program.

Mr Jordhal said he was confident the World Bank’s tribunal would return a favourable verdict, but hopes an agreement can still be reached without arbitration.

“We hope the government steps up and recognises its responsibility and helps us fix the issues that have come up in Laos,” he said. “If not, we’ll certainly pursue these arbitrations to their final settlement phase.”

“This (is) really a key issue for all investors throughout the region, because if this is the way that our government treats foreign investors and honours its international obligation, then it’s not a safe environment for the international investment community, so it’s an important topic for everyone.”

Laos’ government has declined Connect Asia’s request for an interview or statement on the matter.

Work restarted on troubled Laos dam: developer

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source:  http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-16/an-laos-thai-dam/4204146

Updated Thu Aug 16, 2012 9:16pm AEST

The Thai developer of a controversial northern Laos dam says work has resumed on the project, contradicting Laotian assurances it had been suspended following protests over its environmental impact.

Laos agreed in December to suspend the $US3.5 billion Xayaburi dam project and said on July 13 work had stopped after neighbours Cambodia and Vietnam repeatedly expressed concern that the 1,285 megawatt dam would harm migratory fish and the livelihood of downstream villages.

“We are still working on the project. We haven’t received a formal letter from the Lao government that we should suspend or put the project on hold,” Plew Trivisvavet, Chief Executive Officer at Thailand’s Ch Karnchang Pcl, told reporters.

The government of Laos made no immediate comment.

The dam would be the first along the main stream of the Mekong in Southeast Asia. It is at the heart of landlocked Laos’ ambitions to become the hydropower battery of Southeast Asia, with Thailand the main buyer of the energy. Environmentalists fear it could clear the way for more dams across the mighty Mekong, one of Asia’s biggest rivers.

On December 8, the Mekong River Commission, comprising Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, said member governments agreed to approach the Japanese government and other international development partners to further study the dam’s implications before giving Laos the go-ahead to continue construction.

But Ch Karnchang, the dam’s main contractor, expects to begin construction of a reservoir at the site later this year, said Plew.

“We have entered the area for some relocation work and to prepare for the construction of the reservoir,” he said.

Environmental concerns

Communist Laos has hailed Xayaburi as a model for clean, green energy that will stimulate its tiny $6 billion economy and improve the lives of its 5.9 million people, over a quarter of whom live below the poverty line, many without electricity.

It is the first of 11 dams planned in the lower Mekong that are projected to generate 8 per cent of energy-hungry Southeast Asia’s power by 2025.

Environmentalists say Xayaburi could block the flow of nutrient-rich sediment to southern Vietnam’s rice-growing Mekong Delta. State-controlled media in Vietnam have been uncharacteristically critical of the dam.

According to a study by the Mekong River Commission, an inter-government agency, the proposed 11 dams would turn 55 per cent of the river into reservoirs, resulting in estimated agricultural losses of more than $500 million a year and cutting the average protein intake of Thai and Lao people by 30 per cent.

China has built four dams on the upper river, closer to its source, but they are equally controversial. Activists say they were responsible for a 2010 drought that sent lower Mekong water levels to their lowest in half a century.

Ch Karnchang’s 50 per cent-owned subsidiary, Xayaburi Power Co, has received a 29-year concession contract from the Laotian government to operate the dam’s power plant.

Other shareholders in Xayaburi Power include Natee Synergy Co, a unit of PTT Pcl, Thailand’s largest energy firm, with a 25 per cent stake. Thailand’s Electricity Generating Co has 12.5pc, and Bangkok Expressway Pcl has 7.5pc.

Xayaburi Power plans to sell the power to state-run Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, the country’s sole power distributor, in 2019, Plew said, adding Ch Karnchang planned to book revenue of about $127 million from the project this year.

Kasem Prunratanamata, head of research at CIMB Securities in Bangkok, said the Xayaburi dam has put pressure on Ch Karnchang’s stock over concerns the environmental impact would lead to delays and raise costs.

Ch Karnchang shares have fallen 9 per cent in the last 12 months, underperforming a 13pc gain in Bangkok’s broad index. By the midday break, the stock was unchanged at 7 baht, in line with a 0.3 per cent rise in the main index.

-Reuters