Hong Kong Firm Seeks $2 Billion

HONG KONG (AP) — A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal says it is seeking $2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Company, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings, said in a statement it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. Panama’s government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing the Panama Ports Company to run the pair of ports was unconstitutional.