September 18, 2017, Vancouver, B.C. - Bear Creek Mining Corporation (TSX Venture: BCM) (“Bear Creek” or the “Company”) announces that the Tribunal hearing the Company’s Santa Ana ICSID arbitration claim (the “Arbitration”) has officially closed proceedings in the case. As such, no further testimony or exhibits will be submitted to the Tribunal by either the Company or the Republic of Peru and according to ICSID Arbitration Rules, the Tribunal now has 120 days in which to issue the final award.
“We are extremely pleased to know that the Tribunal will be in a position to issue its award in our Santa Ana Arbitration now that it has closed the proceedings,” states Andrew Swarthout, President and CEO of the Company. “It has been a long and arduous process of negotiation and legal action to recover damages suffered by Bear Creek and its shareholders when the government of Peru issued Supreme Decree 032 in June 2011, extinguishing our investment in the Santa Ana Project. We maintain that Peru’s actions constituted an unlawful expropriation, were unfair and unjustified, and not only damaged the Company but also the communities in the Santa Ana area by denying them significant opportunities that the development of this project would have brought. We and our legal counsel remain confident in the merits of our case and we look forward to the outcome of the Arbitration in the next few months.”
Information related to the Arbitration, including procedural orders, written submissions and details regarding the hearings, is available to the public at https://icsid.worldbank.org/en/Pages/cases/casedetail.aspx?CaseNo=ARB/14/21 and a comprehensive summary of the history of the Santa Ana dispute is provided in the Company’s Annual Information Form dated April 19, 2017 (available at https://bearcreekmining.com/investors/annual-information-form/.
On behalf of the Board of Directors,
Andrew Swarthout
President and CEO
For further information contact:
Barbara Henderson, Director of Investor Relations
Direct: 604-628-1111
E-mail: barb@bearcreekmining.com
Or visit www.bearcreekmining.com
Forward Looking Information
This news release contains forward-looking information and forward-looking statements related to: the belief that no further testimony or information will be requested by the Tribunal pursuant to the Arbitration; and, the timing and outcome of the Arbitration award decision. Certain of these forward-looking statements are contingent upon various assumptions, including the Company’s and its legal counsel’s understanding of ICSID Arbitration Rules. This forward-looking information is provided as of the date of this news release and reflects current estimates, predictions, expectations or beliefs regarding future events and is based on the Company’s or its consultants’ beliefs at the time the statements were made, as well as various assumptions made by and information currently available to them. Although management considers these assumptions to be reasonable based on information available to it, they may prove to be incorrect. By their very nature, forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, and risks exist that estimates, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will not be achieved or that assumptions on which they are based do not reflect future experience. We caution readers not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements as a number of important factors could cause the actual outcomes to differ materially from the expectations expressed in them. These risk factors may be generally stated as the risk that the assumptions and estimates used to make such forward-looking statements do not occur and the additional risks described in the Company’s most recent Annual Information Form. When relying on our forward-looking statements, investors and others should carefully consider the foregoing factors and other uncertainties and potential events. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time by the Company or on behalf of the Company, except as required by law.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.