Hudbay Minerals lawsuit (re killing of community leader, Guatemala, filed in Canada)
Sources
Snapshot: In September 2010, a lawsuit was filed in Canada by the widow of a Q’eqchi community leader, Ich Chamán, who was severely beaten and shot in 2009 during a protest against the Fenix mine. The lawsuit was settled in October 2024.
Para la versión en español de este perfil de las demandas judiciales contra HudBay Minerals por actividades en Guatemala, haga clic acá.
C русской версией описания этого дела можно ознакомиться здесь.
A lawsuit was filed in Canada in September 2010 by the widow of a Q’eqchi community leader, Ich Chamán, who was severely beaten and shot in 2009 during a protest against the Fenix mine. His widow, Angelina Choc, claims that security guards from the Fenix project violently beat and shot Chamán, who was unarmed, and killed him. (Ms. Choc is also a plaintiff in the March 2011 lawsuit.) The plaintiff alleged that Hudbay Minerals failed to take adequate precautions to ensure human rights abuses would be not be perpetrated by its security personnel.
Two other lawsuits were filed in Canada against Hudbay Minerals in relation to this project:
- in March 2011, 11 Guatemalan women filed a lawsuit alleging the companie was complicit in the gang rapes committed by private security forces on the Fenix nickel mining project
- in December 2011, a survivor of a shooting incident at the Fenix project filed another lawsuit. The plaintiff, who became paraplegic as a result, alleges that in September of 2009 he was shot at close range in an unprovoked attack by the chief of security for Hudbay’s Fenix project.
On 22 July 2013 the Superior Court of Ontario ruled that the lawsuits can proceed to trial in Canadian court.
On 7 October 2024, the parties announced that a settlement without admission of liability on the part of the company was agreed for the 13 plaintiffs in the three lawsuits related to alleged abuses at the Fenix mine.
In January 2021, Mynor Padilla, the former Security Chief of the Fenix Project, pled guilty in Guatemalan court to murdering the Indigenous leader Ich Chamán. Advisors of Hudbay Minerals commented that this ruling had no effect on the ongoing lawsuits in Canada.
-Hudbay Minerals settles civil lawsuits regarding former operations in Guatemala, Canadian Press, 7 Oct 2024
- [PDF] Ontario court rules that lawsuits against Hudbay Minerals regarding shootings, murder and gang-rape at its former mine in Guatemala can proceed to trial in Canada, 22 Jul 2013
- “Guatemalan widow's lawsuit against Hudbay could be precedent setting”, Matthew Hill, Mining Weekly, 18 Feb 2011
- “Widow files $12M suit against mining company”, CBC News, 2 Dec 2010
- [PDF] Choc v. Hudbay Minerals Inc. - Endorsement, 22 Jul 2013 [Supreme Court of Justice - Ontario]
[PDF] Choc v Hudbay Minerals Inc., HMI Nickel Inc. and Compania Guatemalteca de Niquel S.A., 24 Sep 2010 [filed in Ontario Superior Court of Justice]
Hudbay
- Hudbay Reaches a Mutually Agreed Settlement in Longstanding Civil Lawsuits Related to Former Guatemala Operations, 7 Oct 2024
- Hudbay Responds to Allegations in Statement of Claim, 29 Mar 2011
- The facts: Hudbay's former operations in Guatemala
Plaintiffs' lawyers: Klippensteins Barristers & Solicitors, Rights Action,
-Guatemalan Plaintiffs reach fair and reasonable settlement in Canadian mining lawsuits, 7 Oct 2024