A wholly-owned subsidiary of Bermudian-domiciled Gold Reserve Ltd, the exploration stage mining company, has filed a request for arbitration against the government of Venezuela.

GR Mining (Barbados) Inc filed the request under the Additional Facility Rules of the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes of the World Bank in Washington.

Gold Reserve said: “The arbitration arises from Venezuela’s arbitrary and unlawful measures that deprived GR Mining of its rights to, and materially damaged its investment in, the multi-billion-dollar Siembra Minera mining project located in Venezuela.

“The precise amount of GR Mining’s loss is subject to quantification in the arbitration but, at present, is estimated to exceed $7 billion.”