South American Silver Limited v. Bolivia, UNCITRAL, PCA Case No. 2013-15, Procedural Order No. 2 (December 1, 2014)
I. INTRODUCTION
1. On October 15, 2014, Claimant filed an application (the “Application”) for the Tribunal to classify as “highly confidential” certain information described in Exhibit A to Annex A of this Procedural Order (the “Information”), relied upon by the Claimant’s expert Roscoe Postle and Associates, Inc. (“RPA”) in preparing its expert report dated September 16, 2014 (“RPA Report”).
2. On October 16, 2014, the Tribunal invited Respondent to submit comments as it deemed appropriate in regards to the Application by October 24, 2014.
3. On October 24, 2014, Respondent replied opposing the Application and requesting the Tribunal to reject it.
II. POSITION OF THE PARTIES
a. Summary of Claimant’s Position
i. Claimant’s position on the Application
4. The Application concerns two categories of information: (i) detailed drilling data for the Malku Khota mining project (the “Project”) and the detailed resource model developed based on this data (the drilling data and the resource model referred to collectively as the “Drilling Data”); and (ii) the metallurgical testing data leading to the development of a patented hydrometallurgical process for the recovery of silver, indium, gallium, gold, copper, lead and zinc (the “Testing Data”).1
5. According to Claimant, it would suffer significant harm if the Bolivian Government, Corporación Minera de Bolivia (“COMIBOL”) or any third-party were to obtain possession of the Information, which was developed by Claimant after spending years of hard labor and millions of dollars,2 and which was only made available to RPA after signing a “very strict confidentiality agreement”.3 Claimant alleges that Bolivia has attempted to improperly obtain the Information both before and after the alleged expropriation.4