Recent Central American Court Cases: Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama

Abstract

This installment covers Guatemala, Costa Rica and Panama. Expropriation supplies the longest section: two investment-treaty awards against Guatemala are reported: in Kappes (23 December 2025) the parties agreed on fair market value and disputed the valuation date, discounted cash flow against sunk cost and the pricing of a seized concentrate inventory, and the tribunal dismissed a claim exceeding US$400 million; in Energía y Renovación (31 March 2025) the tribunal worked from costs and reduced the result by 20 percent for failure to mitigate. Costa Rica's Ley de Expropiaciones separates the administrative avalúo, which is the State's offer, from the judicial justiprecio set by a court-appointed expert. In Panama the former concessionaire of the Isla Margarita container port has challenged Decreto Ejecutivo 90 of 20 October 2025, which ordered forty-one parcels expropriated; no indemnity figure exists. Other headings treat Guatemala's Decreto 18-2026, which sets the property tax on residential and mixed-use property to zero; the Panamanian transfer-tax base; the Sala Tercera's holding of 22 July 2025 that the depreciable life of real property may not be shortened below thirty years; the base price at a Panamanian judicial sale; the Costa Rican appraisal on division of marital property; and the canal-port concession arbitrations. Little of this is reported court decision: most rests on press reports, practitioner commentary or an official digest, identified at the point of use. The valuer-liability, estate and insurance headings carry no cases.