Kazakhstan has overturned a $54.5m arbitration award previously granted to World Wide Minerals, a Canadian junior miner, concerning a terminated uranium processing project.
This is the second award cancellation for the company, prolonging a dispute that has spanned more than two decades.
It also highlights the challenges foreign investors face in Kazakhstan’s uranium industry.
The dispute originates from the late 1990s when World Wide Minerals invested in Kazakhstan’s uranium sector, overseeing one of the nation’s largest uranium processing plants.
The company reached agreements with the Kazakh Government, pledging resources to upgrade the country’s uranium processing facilities.
Subsequent measures taken by the Kazakh authorities, such as revoking essential licences and introducing bureaucratic obstacles, resulted in the suspension of World Wide Minerals’ operations and the eventual seizure of its assets.
An international arbitration tribunal found Kazakhstan in breach of international law and the Canada-USSR Bilateral Investment Treaty in October 2019.
This resulted in WWM being awarded more than $40m in damages, with total compensation exceeding $50m when including legal costs.
Kazakhstan contested this decision, and in November 2020, the English High Court overturned the quantum findings of the arbitral award, referring issues related to causation and the calculation of loss back to the tribunal for further review.
World Wide Minerals will now have to submit an appeal to an arbitral tribunal for a third time.
World Wide Minerals president and CEO Ann Marie Carroll said: “World Wide Minerals strongly disagrees with the High Court’s ruling and is deeply disappointed that the Court has again interfered with the company’s decades-long efforts to obtain justice for Kazakhstan’s proven violation of the relevant investment treaty.
“World Wide will continue to pursue its rights with respect to Kazakhstan’s breach of international law, which has now been firmly established by an esteemed arbitral tribunal in two separate Awards.”
In a related development, in January 2025, Kazakhstan national uranium producer Kazatomprom’s majority-owned JV Inkai temporarily halted production at block No. 1 of the domestic Inkai uranium deposit.
The suspension, effective from 1 January 2025, is in place as JV Inkai awaits approval for its revised Project for Uranium Deposit Development Documentation.
