From Stockwatch Energy 6/24/22:
Outcome may determine how PPR Nafta case is settled in the future.
Here in Canada, a private energy company is taking Quebec to court over the province's two-month-old ban on oil and gas development. Utica Resources filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking to force Quebec to overturn the ban or pay $18-billion in compensation. It says the ban "constitutes an attack" on property rights enshrined in the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Quebec enacted the ban in April through Bill 21, becoming the first jurisdiction in the world to explicitly prohibit oil and gas development. (Note that this is a different Bill 21 from an older secularism law that bears the same number -- a quirk of Quebec's legislative calendar.) Utica says the bill amounts to "disguised expropriation" of properties that companies explored in good faith for years. While the province has offered $100-million in compensation to these companies, the money comes with many strings attached, falls far short of the $500-million in estimated spending by the companies over the last 15 years, and does not account for the millions or even billions in value that the properties could be worth. Utica estimated that its own properties could generate $67-billion in future profits. Applying the standard discount rate used by the court, that works out to $18-billion in net present value, hence the figure in the lawsuit.
"Bill 21 is completely irresponsible ... [and] would mean that there are no property rights in Quebec and Canada," fumed Utica CEO Mario Levesque in a statement on Wednesday. He stayed on this theme all week, telling the Financial Post today that the bill is "a direct threat to individual property rights, a massive expropriation and a wrong signal to investors around the world." He will make his case to the Superior Court. No doubt the proceedings will be watched closely by other companies with assets in Quebec, such as Questerre Energy Corp. (QEC: $0.21).