GAMI INVESTMENTS, INC. - NAFTAClaims

Claimant.
MR. PEREZCANO [Interpreted from Spanish]: Now, one of the
measures claimed by GAMI is the standards for the sugar sector that apply
to what we see on the screen, that is to say, this set of participants in
the sugar sector, it applies to the committee, the sugar committee, the
producers, the mills, but it does not cover the controlling corporations
of the mills.
Now, the other measure claimed in this procedure is
expropriation, and that only covers 27 of the 61 sugar mills in Mexico.
None of these applies to GAMI as a shareholder nor to the actions of GAM.
In fact, none of these measures applies to any one of the shareholders of
GAM or the controlling corporations of the sugar mills.
Now, what GAM is claiming is harm to GAMI, and this is only a
proportion of the damage to GAM which is being claimed in this procedure.
The harm alleged by GAMI is the loss of value of the shares as a
consequence of the loss of the total value of GAM given the application
of the measures which are being contested. There is no harm that is
independent to GAMI of any harm attributed to GAM. GAM and the sugar
mills are Mexican companies, and they are owned by Mexicans, and they are
controlled by Mexicans and, consequently, do not have any procedural
legitimacy here and would not fall under the protection of NAFTA.
I would like now to go to the first point which I referred to
at the beginning of my presentation. Article 1101 of Chapter 11 clearly
sets forth that it applies to measures that refer to investments from
elsewhere of the other party and the actions of investments of the other
party in the territory of the host nation.
Now, here I wish to establish a clear difference as to how
GAMI interprets Article 1101 and the clear text of the Article. GAMI
suggests that Article 1101, which sets forth the scope of the application
of the Treaty, indicates that the chapter applies to investors of the
other party, the investments of investors undertaken in the territory of
the party, and performance in terms of the environment and the rest of
the chapter.
However, we must not ignore that Article 1101 establishes
very clearly that the chapter applies to those measures which are adopted
or applied to measures which are of the investments of the other party,
the investments of these--of the other party, and as well as to
performance requirements and environmental issues to all investments in
the territory of the party. And what this sets forth is a very clear
difference because Chapter 11, more than being a chapter on investment,
is a chapter on government measures in regard to investors and
investments.
And the rules of interpreting treaties demand that the terms
be given their common meaning within their context, and the principle of
effectiveness means that the proper meaning needs to be given to each one
of the terms.
Thus, if the measures claimed do not go--are not relevant to
the investor of another party or to the investor, they are outside of the
scope of application of the Treaty and, consequently, the dispute does
not fall under the jurisdiction of the Tribunal.
There is no question that none of the measures claimed by
GAMI as we have seen apply to GAMI as a shareholder of GAM or of its
shares. As I've already said, it does not apply to any of the
shareholders of GAM or any of the controlling companies of the sugar
mills, the regulatory framework of the sugar sector. And in reference to
expropriation of the mills, the shareholders of these mills are
completely--the matter is completely irrelevant.