Salmon-farming firm Cooke Chile has taken a recent decision made by the Chilean environmental regulation supervisory authority, SMA, to the nation’s Supreme Court, ramping up the four-year feud between the two sides.
“The system needs to be reformed urgently!” Cooke Aquaculture Chile CEO Andrés Parodi said in a post on LinkedIn. “Companies that comply with the rules and have all the permits that the growing bureaucracy demands are damaged by those who [do not operate] based on facts or science. I want to believe that the Supreme Court will restore the rule of law and put an end to this unjust, discriminatory, arbitrary, and baseless attack of which we have been a victim.”
Cooke Chile's dispute with the SMA dates back to 2021, when the supervisory entity filed charges against Cooke, accusing it of producing salmon at levels beyond its environmental permit and of maintaining some of its concessions illicitly inside the Laguna San Rafael National Park.
The salmon company, for its part, has argued that rules have been changed capriciously since it originally won the concessions in the 1990s.
Parodi has also insisted that sanctions and other measures SMA has carried out are arbitrary, such as the mandated halting of operations at Cooke’s Huillines 3 grow-out center. According to the company, this move has generated significant economic losses for which it may seek international arbitration...
