:( Constitutional Court voted in favour of Codelco 3-2. Court of...

Constitutional Court voted in favour of Codelco 3-2. Court of Appeals case will now be re-opened.

https://www.df.cl/noticias/empresas...elco-por-extraccion-de/2018-05-23/165305.html

Constitutional Court rejects resource against Codelco for extraction of lithium in Maricunga
In divided decision, the organ dismissed the appeal filed by Salar Blanco.

Published: Wednesday, May 23, 2018 at 4:51 p.m

The Salar de Maricunga is the second in importance in the country after the Atacama, however, to date there is no commercial exploitation, although there are up to five companies that have belongings in the area.

One of the reasons is that the only firm that has the corresponding permits is Codelco, whose authorization was just the subject of a complaint by Minera Salar Blanco before the Constitutional Court, which finally decided not to accept the request from the company linked to the employer. Martín Borda.

In a split decision, which counted on the votes in favor of the president of the second room, Iván Aróstica, together with Nelson Pozo and Gonzalo García; and against María Luisa Brahm and Cristián Letelier, the body defined that "it becomes unequivocal that the controversy that is presented to this Constitutional Court is a matter of the competence of the judge of the merits, appealable through the means of challenge that he passes the law to the plaintiff, as he has done precisely before the Court of Appeals of Santiago, in whose jurisdiction the decision of the matter in question is found. "

On behalf of the state, the legal counsel of the institution, Nicolai Bakovic, described this ruling as "strong support for the seriousness and legitimacy of all efforts that, for more than two years, Codelco and the Ministry of Mining have developed for comply with the presidential mandate to develop a comprehensive and sustainable lithium project in the Salar de Maricunga, in the Atacama Region ".

In this way, the appeal for which Minera Salar Blanco accuses the blocking Corporation after the authorization received by the Ministry of Economy, returns to the Court of Appeals, where the company had previously submitted an economic amparo remedy.