Setback for the Government of President Piñera and the lithium tender: court dictates order not to innovate and suspends questioned process

In the midst of the crossing of statements between the outgoing and the incoming government, the Court of Appeals of Copiapó accepted an appeal for protection and issued an order not to innovate that suspends the bidding process for contracts for the exploitation, exploration and benefits of lithium.
The legal action was filed a few days ago by the regional governor of Atacama, Miguel Vargas, before the Ministry of Mining announced the award of 2 of the 5 quotas that were offered.
It should be recalled that the Government reported that these two quotas, of 80,000 tons of marketable lithium metal (LME) each, were awarded to the companies BYD Chile SpA (with Chinese capital) and Servicios y Operaciones Mineras del Norte S.A (Chilean, of the Errázuriz Group).
After the announcement, the opposition political parties announced the presentation of legal actions to paralyze the process, where even a group of parliamentarians turned to the Comptroller General of the Republic.
Likewise, the decision of the Executive was questioned by the President-elect, Gabriel Boric, who described it as “bad news for Chile.”
The deputy of the PPD Raúl Soto valued tremendously “the courage of the decision of the Court of Appeals of Copiapó, which did what the Court of Appeals of Santiago avoided, to grant a remedy of protection ruling favorably an order not to innovate to suspend and stop this illegitimate lithium tender, which meant an armed robbery of Chileans.”
“We value this decision. All the actions, the political and social pressure that has been exerted in recent days will not be in vain, and finally lithium will be protected for Chile and for Chileans, and we will have the opportunity to rediscuss as a society what is the strategy we want for the future of our natural resources, and especially this one that is so strategic, as is lithium,” he added.
His counterpart from RD Catalina Pérez said, meanwhile, that “it is evident the affectation of the rights of the communities that this adjudication implies. The various protection appeals and today the court’s ruling have given an account of this. The government’s decision is an economic, strategic, environmental and rights problem that, without a doubt, will continue to give us something to talk about in the courts of our country.”
The deputy RN Francisco Eguiguren also came to the step of the decision of the court of elevation copiapino, but maintained that “it would subtract all drama from this ruling of the court, which has ruled on the way waiting to pronounce on the merits.” In the opinion of the pro-government parliamentarian, “the truth is that in Chile the institutions work, and I believe that the Government should appeal to replace this resource, and that we have peace of mind, things will be decanting because I am sure that this has been a good process, which has been approved with the taking of reason of comptroller, that it has complied with all the stages that the bases were proposed and that in short, the more transparency and clarity there is, the more viability and more validity this bidding process will have”.

Original source in Spanish