Panama court is asked to cancel Hong Kong firm’s contract to run canal ports

Cargo containers sit stacked at the Balboa port, one of two operated by a Hong Kong-based company at either end of the Panama Canal, on Friday. Photograph: Matias Delacroix/AP

Two Panamanian lawyers have lodged a lawsuit with the country’s supreme court in an attempt to cancel a Hong Kong-based company’s concession to operate two ports at either end of the Panama canal.

Their complaint – filed a day after the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, told Panama’s president, José Raúl Mulino, to reduce China’s alleged influence on the canal – argues that the contract for the two ports is unconstitutional.