The dispute originates from measures taken by Panama affecting the Cerro Quema gold mining project owned by Canadian investor Orla Mining Ltd. In late 2023, Panama enacted several measures that prompted the arbitration, including an executive decree prohibiting new mining concessions and Law 407, which established a national moratorium on granting, renewing, or extending concessions for metal mining. Subsequently, Panama's Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MICI) issued three resolutions that directly impacted Orla's local subsidiary, Minera Cerro Quema, S.A. These resolutions rejected the subsidiary's application for the extension of three key mining concessions, retroactively canceled the existing concessions, and declared the entire area a reserve under the Panamanian mining code, thereby preventing any future mining activities. In response, Orla Mining initiated proceedings under the Canada-Panama Free Trade Agreement (FTA), formally registering a Request for Arbitration with the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) on July 11, 2024. The arbitral tribunal was constituted on October 7, 2024, with Mr. Yves Derains (French) serving as President, appointed by agreement of the parties. The Claimant appointed Prof. Dr. Horacio A. Grigera Naón (Argentinian/American), and the Respondent appointed Mr. Ignacio Torterola (Argentinian/American). The proceedings are governed by the 2022 ICSID Arbitration Rules, with Washington D.C. designated as the seat of arbitration and both English and Spanish as procedural languages. The tribunal held its first session on November 29, 2024, and subsequently issued Procedural Order No. 1, which established the procedural framework and a timeline scheduling the final hearing on the merits for November 2026. Concurrently, Procedural Order No. 2 outlined the transparency rules for the case, in line with the FTA, providing for public access to the award, orders, and hearings, while keeping party submissions confidential. A significant procedural development occurred in July 2025, when Orla Mining filed a proposal to disqualify the tribunal's President, Mr. Yves Derains. The challenge alleged a manifest lack of independence and impartiality arising from his professional and academic relationship with Mr. Eduardo Silva Romero, a founding partner of Wordstone, the law firm representing Panama. The grounds for disqualification cited a long history of professional interactions and alleged reciprocal appointments, Panama's strategic decision to hire Wordstone after Mr. Derains' appointment, and a recent disclosure by Mr. Derains that his law firm, Derains & Gharavi, had appointed Mr. Silva Romero as an arbitrator in an unrelated ICSID case. On September 24, 2025, the remaining arbitrators, Prof. Grigera Naón and Mr. Torterola, issued a decision decisively rejecting the disqualification proposal. The arbitrators found most of Orla's claims to be time-barred under ICSID Arbitration Rule 22, as they were based on publicly available information that should have been raised when Panama first appointed its counsel. Despite this, they addressed the substance of the allegations, concluding that the professional ties between Mr. Derains and Mr. Silva Romero—such as their involvement in the ICC Institute of World Business Law and Mr. Silva Romero's contribution to a Liber Amicorum for Mr. Derains—were commonplace in the international arbitration community and did not create an objective appearance of bias. The tribunal found no evidence of a pattern of reciprocal appointments that would suggest a conflict of interest, and determined that Mr. Derains' firm's appointment of Mr. Silva Romero in another case did not create a disqualifying financial interest. Following the dismissal of the challenge, the arbitration resumed. Panama had previously filed a request for bifurcation of the proceedings on May 13, 2025, and a hearing to address this request was scheduled for December 9, 2025. The case remains pending.