Such worries have been amplified by Argentina's expropriation last month of YPF, a Spanish-controlled oil firm.
The third problem has to do with the messy legacy of the Repsol expropriation, which complicates future investment prospects.
The bill may even be unconstitutional, if the withdrawal of old rights can be shown to amount to expropriation.
It has increased the tax on unfarmed land, and speeded up expropriation procedures.
Officials counter that they do not intend to seize productive land, and that compensation would be paid for any expropriation.
Although subsidiaries are technically independent companies once they are listed, the potential for the expropriation of minority shareholders is immense.
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Expropriation brought into its hands about one-third of the urban space in the national-capital region (a rough square around Ottawa-Hull).
If a Nobel prize is no defence against expropriation, that doesn't bode well for the security of property rights in Bangladesh.
The family survived and flourished despite expropriation of much of its assets under Chile's left-wing President Salvador Allende in the early 1970s.
It supported tough actions such as the expropriation of foreign oil companies in 1938 and the nationalisation of private banks in 1982.
It may also contravene a 1994 law guaranteeing British investment against expropriation.
Countries from Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador to Russia have shown that they can and do retroactively impose taxes on energy companies, or even outright expropriation.
The details of these negotiations are now being worked out between foreign oil executives and state officials in Quito as the threat of expropriation lingers.
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The Ecuadorean government will use expropriation and extended operating contracts as the stick and carrot to try to coerce foreign firms into signing service contracts.
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The constitution also establishes the principle of private property but leaves open the possibility of expropriation in case there is any public need that requires it.
There will be no construction beyond the existing construction line, no expropriation of land for construction, no special economic incentives and no construction of new settlements.
Indeed, the threatened expropriation of the assets of Repsol, a Spanish oil company, by the Argentine government demonstrates why oil companies should pay corporate income tax to their home governments.
"Begin the expropriation process with Cargill, " he said in a nationally televised speech in which he accused the company of growing specialized forms of rice in an attempt to evade price controls.
Tobacco firms from the United States, for example, assert that the Canadian government's requirement that health warnings on cigarette packets should be bigger than the brand name amounts to expropriation of their intangible assets.
The price of YPF bonds briefly rose with the announcement of the oil firm's nationalisation in April by Argentina's government, because of a clause demanding advanced payment in the case of an expropriation, before falling back as investors worried Argentina wouldn't much care.
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