Chilean authorities accuse SQM of underpaying royalties, environmental violations and illicit political financing, which have made the sale process complex, raising at the same time the specter of delays or a steep price discount, local paper Diario Financiero reports (in Spanish).

Decision to withdraw offer for Nutrien’s 32% stake in SQM, worth about $5 billion at current market prices, doesn’t mean Rio Tinto has abandoned plans to capitalize on the electric-car boom.
The company has denied those allegations, adding it is sure a high-stakes arbitration with the government over royalties in Chile's Atacama salt flat will be resolved in its favour.

Rio’s decision withdraw an offer for Nutrien’s 32% stake in the Santiago-based lithium miner, worth about $5 billion at current market prices, doesn’t mean the company has abandoned plans to capitalize on the electric-car boom, the article says.

Nutrien, formed through Canada’s Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (TSX, NYSE:POT) recent friendly merger with Agrium, must sell its stake in SQM to meet a condition imposed by Indian regulators when approving that link-up.

They have given the fertilizer company until April 2019 to divest its stake in the Chilean miner.

SQM, which has a market value at just over $15 billion, produced roughly 44,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate last year and is developing new projects both in its home-country and Australia.

Laws enacted in the 1970s and 1980s classify lithium as a “strategic” commodity for Chile on the grounds it can be used in nuclear-fusion power plants. While the South American nation is very unlikely to build one of those facilities any time soon, controls on lithium production remain and only two firms — SQM and US chemical company Albenarle Corporation (NYSE:ALB) — are currently allowed to mine the white metal used in electric car batteries.