A judge in British Columbia ruled last week that a NAFTA tribunal was right to award millions of dollars to a U.S. company that was prevented from opening a hazardous waste treatment plant in Mexico. Justice David Tysoe of the Supreme Court of B.C. found that the move by the state government of San Luis Potosi to declare an area an ecological preserve to prevent the Metalclad plant from opening amounted to an expropriation of the company’s investment. The case was heard in Canada because the NAFTA tribunal designated B.C. as a neutral legal venue.
