(Reuters) – Canada’s TC Energy said on Tuesday a free trade arbitration tribunal had rejected its claim to recover more than $15 billion from the U.S. government for canceling its Keystone XL project.
The pipeline operator filed a formal request for arbitration under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 2021.
US President Joe Biden canceled the pipeline license a year after NAFTA ended in July 2020. The pact was then replaced by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
TC Energy said the court ruled that it did not have the authority to decide whether revoking the Presidential License violated obligations outlined in NAFTA.
“This decision does not align with our expectations and views regarding the clear interpretation of the protections that NAFTA and USMCA were designed to provide,” TC Energy said Tuesday.
Keystone
In 2022, Alberta, Canada’s largest oil-producing province, also began a trade challenge to recoup its investment of about 1.3 billion Canadian dollars ($949.95 million) in the pipeline.
($1 = 1.3685 Canadian dollars)
(Reporting by Vallari Srivastava in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
