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Thursday 13 February 2003

Villalobos Investors Proceed to ICSID International Arbitration against the Republic of Costa Rica

Investors of Luis Enrique and Osvaldo Villalobos have hired CAIN LAMARRE CASGRAIN WELLS, s.e.n.c. (CLCW), a large law firm with an international law department to represent the investors in ICSID International Arbitration in a case against the Republic of Costa Rica.  The partner in charge of the case is Martin ST-AMANT.

CLCW has 93 lawyers in 12 offices all over the province of Quebec, Canada and is a member of IAG International, an international network of law firms. CLCW also has a very close relationship with Perkins, Smith and Cohen, an American law firm (Boston and Washington), and with Weissberg & Partners, a French law firm (Paris). 

Costa Rica became a member of ICSID in 1993 and has additional bilateral investment protection agreements with Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium-Luxembourg, Holland, and Spain. 

As an ICSID member and under bilateral investment protection agreements, the Republic of Costa Rica has the legal and international obligation to protect foreign investment in Costa Rica.  This has not been accomplished.

A 17-year old civil dispute between the Compañía del Desarrollo Santa Elena (a land company owned primarily by U.S. citizens) and the Republic of Costa Rica was resolved in 2000 through ICSID International Arbitration.  The Republic of Costa Rica lost and paid $16 million to CDSE for the 1978 government expropriation of CDSE’s land that had originally been purchased in 1970 for $395,000. 

It should also be noted that initially, the Republic of Costa Rica tried to avoid ICSID arbitration until the World Bank postponed a $145 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank.  The Republic of Costa Rica cannot refuse ICSID arbitration and must respect the decisions and orders of ICSID arbitration.

For more information on ICSID, please see the attached document or visit the following websites:

For more information on joining this arbitration, please contact the Class Action Center at (506) 289 – 9917 or by email at info@classactioncenter.net or go to their website at www.classactioncenter.net.