Law

MEXICO CITY — Canada has become a major force in Latin America. It’s spent the last 30 years beefing up its portfolio with investments in mining, oil and natural gas. It’s established free trade agreements and foreign investment protections with dozens of countries, and is in the process of negotiating more. As a result, the […]

JAKARTA — A court in Indonesia’s Riau province, the country’s palm oil heartland, has sentenced a high-ranking official to 12 years in prison for taking bribes in exchange for issuing or renewing plantation permits. The court in Pekanbaru, the provincial capital, found on Aug. 31 that Muhammad Syahrir, the former head of the Riau land […]

JAKARTA — An Indonesian court has upheld a government decision to curb the expansion of a multibillion-dollar oil palm plantation project in the country’s easternmost region of Papua. In its Sept. 9 ruling, the Jakarta State Administrative Court rejected lawsuits filed by two plantation companies that are part of the Tanah Merah mega plantation project, […]

JAKARTA — Indonesia and Malaysia, the world’s top two producers of palm oil, have set up a joint task force with the European Union to address their differences over a new law making it harder for the ubiquitous commodity to enter the EU. The governments of Indonesia and Malaysia, which together account for about 85% […]

JAKARTA — A million-dollar bribery case in Indonesia’s Riau province, the country’s palm oil heartland, has prompted calls for a wider investigation into corruption between business players and the local officials tasked with policing their operations. Prosecutors at a court in Pekanbaru, the provincial capital, are seeking an 11.5-year sentence for Muhammad Syahrir, the former […]

Urban development projects surrounding a protected lake in Paraguay are threatening the recovery of local ecosystems and raising questions about the government’s ability to circumvent conservation mandates. Wetlands around Lake Ypacaraí are being filled in to allow for the construction of housing and tourism projects despite a series of environmental recovery measures that prohibit development […]

A ruling by Mexico’s Supreme Court this month canceled two controversial mining concessions in Indigenous communities, which have been fighting to stop the projects for nearly two decades. The Nahua community in Tecoltemi won its Supreme Court case against the Secretariat of Economy for illegally granting mining concessions to a Canadian company that planned to […]

JAKARTA — A sting by anti-corruption officers in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province has uncovered evidence that a powerful local official allegedly used slave labor on his oil palm plantation. Agents from the KPK, Indonesia’s anti-corruption commission, found 48 men locked up in barred cells during a raid on Jan. 18 at the residential compound of […]

JAKARTA — A court in Indonesia has rejected a bid by two palm oil companies to have their permits restored after they were scrapped by local authorities for a litany of violations. For the Indigenous peoples whose territory fell within the companies’ concessions, the ruling offers a rare chance to finally have their land rights […]

PEKANBARU, Riau — Anti-corruption investigators in Indonesia’s palm oil heartland have arrested a local official for allegedly taking bribes from a palm oil company in exchange for extending its business permit. Officers from the KPK, the national anti-graft agency, have charged Andi Putra, the head of Kuantan Singingi district in Riau province, and Sudarso, general […]