LOPEZ ALIAGA’S PRESIDENTIAL AMBITIONS BLINDED BY REALITY
Statement by The Honorable Connie Mack IV (R-FL), advisor to Brookfield:
Mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga’s desperate attacks against Brookfield’s investment in Rutas de Lima are an obvious attempt to score cheap political points in advance of a presidential campaign.
He has staked his political future and reputation on undoing the Rutas de Lima agreement with Brookfield and is using high priced lawyers and Washington political consultants to wage a smear campaign against the company.
These attacks by a ‘wannabe MAGA’ are flimsy and have become increasingly desperate.
The reality that he hopes you won’t see: At every turn of the legal process, Lopez Aliaga and his high-priced legal team have lost.
Every arbitral tribunal that has ruled on the merits of Brookfield’s toll roads’ arbitral claims has found no evidence of corruption or wrongdoing by Brookfield. These decisions were confirmed by the U.S. District Court that reviewed the arbitral findings. The Municipality of Lima has lost at every turn of the arbitration and confirmation processes.
But rather than come to a resolution, Lopez Aliaga and his lawyers are filing frivolous motions and needlessly dragging out this matter and saddling the people of Lima with tens of millions of unnecessary costs. Lima’s law firm Boies Schiller is set to make tens of millions, and as it stands now, Brookfield is owed $200 million or more for Lopez Aliaga’s illegally ripping up the Rutas de Lima concession contract. Moreover, the Peruvian state’s continued arbitrariness against Brookfield’s investment has led to an international arbitration that may result in an additional hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation owed to Brookfield by the State of Peru (and thus payable by all Peruvian taxpayers), an outcome that Brookfield has sought to avoid at all costs.
To make matters worse, Lopez Aliaga has made insinuations of corruption against the U.S. District Court and launched a local criminal investigation into arbitrators when they ruled against the Municipality of Lima, which even his defenders had trouble squaring. He has even suggested it may not be safe for a U.S. judge to travel outside of the U.S. under threat of a Red Notice.
Disappointingly, Lopez Aliaga is sacrificing Lima’s and Peru’s reputation as a place for foreign investment for his own political gain. This is selfish and will only harm the citizens of Peru.
It is time for Lopez Aliaga and his advisors to get their facts straight, stop wasting the money of the people of Lima, and get serious about resolving this matter.
For The Hon. Connie Mack IV’s letter correcting Lopez Aliaga’s falsehoods, click here.
For Key Facts on this matter, click here.