Guaido and the Conoco Award

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

"Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido will seek to annul an $8.7 billion arbitration award to U.S. oil producer ConocoPhillips as he moves to preserve foreign assets, Guaido’s chief legal representative said on Tuesday." Here.

Calling it preservation of foreign assets is charming. I call it wanting to have your cake and eat it, too. 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

16 minutes ago, Marina Schwarz said:

"Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido will seek to annul an $8.7 billion arbitration award to U.S. oil producer ConocoPhillips as he moves to preserve foreign assets, Guaido’s chief legal representative said on Tuesday." Here.

Calling it preservation of foreign assets is charming. I call it wanting to have your cake and eat it, too. 

Fat lot of good this is going to do him as China, Russia, U.S. and other creditors come to claim their due of long-overdue debts and recovery of foreign assets stolen outright by Venezuela's outrageously corrupt leaders.

Venezuela must have a pretty unique legal system if its lawyers "cannot be questioned."

I believe the technical term is "Kangaroo Court."

 

Hernandez has been assigned to protect Venezuela’s assets abroad from possible seizure by creditors.

... Hernandez said Guaido’s legal representation “cannot be questioned.”

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

If it's our guys doing it, it's democratic, Tom, I don't need to tell you this, do I?

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

5 hours ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Fat lot of good this is going to do him as China, Russia, U.S. and other creditors come to claim their due of long-overdue debts and recovery of foreign assets stolen outright by Venezuela's outrageously corrupt leaders.

Venezuela must have a pretty unique legal system if its lawyers "cannot be questioned."

I believe the technical term is "Kangaroo Court."

 

I think you are misreading what attorney Hernandez was setting forth.  Attorney Hernandez was not stating that the attorney himself "cannot be questioned," rather it is that the selection and appointment of an attorney to represent the Guaido Government-in-exile cannot be questioned - or repudiated.  And the underlying reason is that the Government-in-exile has been recognized as the legitimate Venezuelan government by the overwhelming number of other governments around the world - the exceptions being the reliable promoters of the police state, e.g. Cuba, Iran, North Korea, that crowd. 

Nor is attorney Hernandez stating, as you seem to imply, that the arbitration awards of compensation for expropriated industries are to be set aside. That is not what is being advocated.  Rather, it is the size of the awards that is or will be challenged.   

There is no "kangaroo court."  the legal proceedings are before the Arbitration "court" of the World Bank, where the original proceedings were brought.  I am not clear on where that is physically, but I would venture to say in Brussels - assuredly not inside Venezuela.  The Venezuela legal system, whatever its merits or failures, will have zero impact or input into a review of the arbitration. 

I can foresee a number of plausible outcomes.  One, which is perfectly simple, is the return of the seized or "nationalized" assets. Then there would have to be further arbitration on the diminution of those assets, but whatever that number would be, it would be a lot less than the current awards.  Since the apparent goal of the review of arbitration is to preserve foreign exchange in the Treasury, I can see that that is a plausible approach.   Another outcome, basically hinted at in the Reuters article linked above, is to simply create an obstacle to the taking of that currency or the Citgo shares, which has some value. That is a legal strategy that does not go over big with Conoco, but it is what it is. Litigants do that all the time. You can argue the appeals are "meritless" or "done for the purposes of delay," but that remains a point of view. That is why court decisions and awards are subject to appeal.  I can see that some of the claims may be difficult to quantify.  That alone provides fertile grounds for appeal. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

3 hours ago, Marina Schwarz said:

If it's our guys doing it, it's democratic, Tom, I don't need to tell you this, do I?

Actually, it is. 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

9 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

I think you are misreading what attorney Hernandez was setting forth.  Attorney Hernandez was not stating that the attorney himself "cannot be questioned," rather it is that the selection and appointment of an attorney to represent the Guaido Government-in-exile cannot be questioned - or repudiated.  And the underlying reason is that the Government-in-exile has been recognized as the legitimate Venezuelan government by the overwhelming number of other governments around the world - the exceptions being the reliable promoters of the police state, e.g. Cuba, Iran, North Korea, that crowd. 

< snip >

I stand corrected, thanks Jan.  Clearly, I misunderstood the article. 

In my defense, I've been laughing so hard today at the diatribes of the brand new crop of Trump haters that recently joined here, that my brain may have gotten a bit addled from too much sniggering at willful absurdity.

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

45 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Actually, it is. 

If you're okay with double standards, which I know you are, of course. I'm not.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

46 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

I stand corrected, thanks Jan.  Clearly, I misunderstood the article. 

In my defense, I've been laughing so hard today at the diatribes of the brand new crop of Trump haters that recently joined here, that my brain may have gotten a bit addled from too much sniggering at willful absurdity.

Now that's funny!!!!!   Yes, Mr. Trump has certainly become a lightning rod for the "True Believers in Something Else" floating around out there.  It reminds me of the days of George  (W.) Bush (43), who really made the US charter-bus business boom.  Everyone and anyone was chartering buses to roll to Washington to go "protest" whatever was on the agenda.  It did not really matter what it was, as long as George had his signature on the other side of that coin.  It was just unreal!  When there was some "march" going on, it got so that the D.C. police set up these marshalling yards on the outskirts and demanded that the protesters come into town by the subway system, to avoid total gridlock downtown. Interestingly, the latest crop of True Believers don't seem to bother; instead they do their shout-downs on the electronic print-waves. 

I point to two industries that seem to have recovered just a bit under The Donald: one is softwood lumber, where the excess capacity in the industry has been shifted back to the big exporter, Canada.  The other is the steel industry, where again excess capacity has been pushed back outside the Borders, specifically back to India, to the Luxembourg subsidiary of the Indian steel conglomerate  (with plants in France), and back into Canada, where the Hamilton plant for rolled steel was exporting perhaps 95% of its product into the US market.  In aluminum, it looks like the Chinese producers have had their dumping shut down. 

It will be interesting to see if Mr. Trump does with dumped imported autos what he has done with basic steel. Cheers.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

28 minutes ago, Marina Schwarz said:

If you're okay with double standards, which I know you are, of course. I'm not.

Yup, you've got that right.  I am Mr. Double Standard, all day long.  Chalk it up to that Dutch DNA.