Foreign investors could be sent to jail in Fiji for breaking a new investment law, says the prominent Suva law firm Munro Leys.

The company said the “vague and unsatisfactory” new Investment Act could create greater uncertainty for foreign investors.

In a legal alert to its clients, Munro Leys lawyers also said aspects of the new law could do “more harm than help” and “poor legal drafting leaves us more confused and slightly alarmed”.

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It said serious investors relied on the laws of their target country to give them certainty and transparency.

“The Investment Act, unfortunately, does the opposite. In place of transparency, there is significant potential for confusion and frustration,” the legal firm said.

Munro Leys criticises some of the wording of the new law as “vague and almost impossible to legally pin down”.

“If we don’t know who a ‘foreign investor’ is and when they are investing, it is impossible to know which rules apply,” the legal alert said.

New regulations criticised
The firm’s alert also criticised new regulations which required foreign investors to bring into Fiji their total investment amount within three months of “incorporation” and said an investor could be prosecuted for failing to do so.

“The penalty for the offence, for an individual, is a fine not exceeding $10,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or both. Bodies corporate can be fined up to $50,000.

“To make matters worse, it’s not clear to whom this three-month rule applies. From a plain reading of the regulations, it applies only to those foreign investors investing in restrictive activities,” the legal advice said.

“However, the authorities appear to have expressed the view that it applies to all foreign investors.

“It is difficult to see the government prosecuting a foreign investor which does not bring in its money on time. But criminalising delay may create other issues for investors going to the legality of their investment and double down on the uncertainty that has already been created.”

Criticising Section 7 of the Act, Munro Leys said that an investor was required to send an investment proposal to the government for consent to invest in certain “critical sectors” but it was not clear what those sectors were.

“No one knows what the proposal should say, what criteria the minister will apply in his/her decision and how long the minister will take to approve it.

Other problems
“It seems that the government intends for regulations to be made to decide what sectors need ministerial approval. [But] with about a month to go before the new law comes into effect, there are no regulations.

“The problems are not confined to new investors.

“Existing investors, including those who complied with the old Foreign Investment Act, are not immune.

“They may now need to apply for permission to make new investments. Some companies who were not previous “foreign investors” may find they are now in that category (and vice versa).”

The Act will come into effect from August.

Questions sent to Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, Fiji Commerce and Employers Federation (FCEF) and Fiji Chamber of Commerce and Industry remained unanswered.

Luke Nacei is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

It was probably one of those rare times when I “became the news” as a journalist.

I had accompanied Greenpeace activists to the Port Moresby headquarters of the Rimbunan Hijau (RH) in June 2006 to report on the presentation of the “golden chainsaw award” to the Malaysian logging giant.

And I literally got “arrested” by security guards for trespassing and ended up at the Gordons Police Station.

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Police later let me go, saying I was only doing my job.

I covered Papua New Guinea’s forestry sector extensively between 2003–2007 as a journalist and reported on many cases of human rights abuses, dodgy timber permit licences and the often clandestine relationship between loggers and Papua New Guinean politicians in successive national and provincial governments.

I was sued a couple of times by logging companies in Papua New Guinea’s National Court along with my then employer, the PNG Post-Courier, and I was sent numerous warning letters by lawyers — a favourite tactic employed by a lot of logging companies at that time to keep away nosy journalists.

That has probably become standard practice today, as PNG media companies with dwindling advertising revenue fearing hefty legal bills pushing them to bankruptcy back off.

Support of ‘true patriots’
My reportage wouldn’t have hit the printing press without the support of Papua New Guinean conservationists and true patriots who had a heart for the traditional landowners as well as international environmental groups.

Also, officials at Morauta House, Waigani, who leaked official documentation from a government review of PNG’s logging sector in early 2000s which uncovered massive breaches of logging permit extensions and alleged human rights abuse, often perpetrated by rogue landowner-individuals in collision with corrupt officials.

Papua New Guinea’s traditional landowners of the country’s tropical rainforest to this day remain the custodians of 5 percent of the world’s biodiversity, but continue to face increasing pressure from unscrupulous developers.

With the 2022 General Election just 6-7 months away, the media in PNG should be vigilant as history shows that the country is at its most vulnerable state in the lead-up to, during and after a general election.

Alexander Rheeney is a former PNG journalist and ex-editor of the PNG Post-Courier and now an editor of the Samoa Observer.