The headquarters of Gas Natural (Barcelona) will present a demand for international arbitration against Colombia if the National Government does not resolve the conflict over the debt of 1,100 million euros ($ 3.6 trillion) that have accumulated thousands of customers of Electricaribe.
According to the newspaper The Country of Spain, the company iberian already started the paperwork to go to arbitration, notifying the 12th of July at the National Government about the existence of the conflict, and activating the mechanism of protection of investments between Spain and Colombia.
"this Is about the step before going to the Icsid, the international arbitration court dependent of the World Bank headquarters in Washington," points to the journal.
Both Natural Gas as the National Government have six months to resolve the dispute in a negotiated basis. If you do not reach an agreement, the Spanish company provide a formal lawsuit before the same court of international arbitration.
The dispute part by the lack of payments that Natural Gas suffers a change of distributing the energy service to 2.5 million people living in the region of the Caribbean coast,, and which recorded a rate of return of receipts of close to 80%.
however, "most of the defaults do not have to do directly with poverty, according to sources of the negotiation,", says the Spanish newspaper.
it is Worth remembering that among the largest debtors of Electricaribe are the governorates, governmental agencies and places of detention to which Natural Gas claimed 45 million euros ($ 149.419 million).
"at the same time, local courts denied systematically the petitions of the electric company cut the supply on the need of the poorest neighbourhoods", records, the Spanish newspaper.
The situation for the delay in payments has become more complex by the rise in the price of electricity by more than 30% since 2015.
Faced with this situation, accurate to the newspaper The Country, Natural Gas has delayed the implementation of the plan of investments envisaged, "what has motivated you to turn the threat of the colombian Government to intervene in the subsidiary (Electricaribe), as said by the superintendent of Public Services, José Miguel Mendoza."
Natural Gas told the aforementioned newspaper that has provided two thirds of the hole of 1,100 million euros pending collection and has not been able to repatriate any dividend in the country since 2000 due to the strong losses of each year.
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