Lawsuits against mining company alleging shootings, gang rapes can go ahead in Canada

Three lawsuits against a Canadian mining company over alleged shootings and gang rapes at a Guatemalan project will be allowed to proceed in Canada following a ruling that makes it possible for firms to face liability at home for incidents that occur overseas.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs, 13 Mayan Guatemalans, said the decision is a “wake-up call” for Canadian companies about their responsibilities at foreign mining projects.

“This step in the case uses existing legal rules that have not been applied in this way before,” lawyer Murray Klippenstein said in an interview Tuesday.

The suits allege that security personnel, along with members of the police and military, attacked and raped 11 women in 2007 who were forcibly removed from their village in relation to the Fenix project.

Two related lawsuits seek to hold HudBay Minerals Inc. and a subsidiary responsible for the subsequent killing of community leader Adolfo Ich as a result of a land dispute and the shooting and paralysis of local resident German Chub.

HudBay, which didn’t own the mining operations when most of the alleged incidents occurred, has said the accusations contradict available information and that it would defend itself “vigorously against them.”

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

The Toronto-based company bought the Fenix project nickel mine in Guatemala in a corporate takeover of Skye Resources in 2008, but sold it in 2011 to Russian firm Solway Investment Group to focus on its Canadian and Peruvian projects.

HudBay is denying any responsibility and relying on the legal defence that a parent company is not responsible for the actions of its subsidiary.

In her decision, Superior Court of Ontario Justice Carole Brown ruled Monday that the three lawsuits against HudBay shouldn’t be dismissed and should be allowed to proceed to trial because necessary standards were met.

Klippenstein said the ruling was a good reflection on the Canadian justice system, and gave hope to plaintiffs who’d felt victimized in Guatemala’s “broken” system.

Officials at HudBay were not immediately available for comment, but the company has said on its website that it “does not believe the allegations that sexual assaults occurred during (the) evictions is credible and no complaints of this nature have been filed with the authorities in Guatemala.”

It also says that “according to the prosecutor and police reports . . . the evictions were carried out peacefully and without any injuries,” and denies that any of its personnel was involved in Ich’s death in 2009.

“HudBay takes its role as a corporate citizen seriously and respects and protects human rights wherever HudBay operates,” the site says.