Hier die komplette Meldung. Wohl nix weiter passiert...!?!
Rusoro's Venezuelan Asset Bid Nixed Following $1.2B Deal Share us on: By Caroline Simson Law360 (November 21, 2018, 3:43 PM EST) -- A D.C. federal judge on Wednesday nixed an attempt by Rusoro Mining to begin pinning down Venezuelan assets to enforce a $1.2 billion arbitral award issued after its investments in the country were seized, several weeks after the Canadian miner announced it had settled the dispute with the financially ailing nation. Rusoro won the award from an international tribunal after Venezuela nationalized its mining assets in the country without compensation, and U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon of the D.C. federal court confirmed the award earlier this year. A few weeks later, Rusoro urged the court to allow it to register the judgment in other districts and to begin attaching Venezuela's assets, but the motion remained pending while Venezuela swapped its counsel and kicked off an appeal before the D.C. Circuit. Meanwhile, in August, a Delaware federal judge allowed Crystallex International Corp., which holds a $1.4 billion arbitral award against Venezuela over a canceled mining project, to seize shares in PDV Holding Inc., a subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company, Petrleos de Venezuela SA, whose most significant U.S. asset is Citgo. Execution on the PDVH shares has, for the moment, been paused pending an appeal. Rusoro, too, had been seeking to attach PDVSA's shares of PDVH, but the calculus apparently changed in October, when Rusoro announced that it had inked a $1.28 billion settlement with Venezuela in exchange for the company's mining data. Still, the settlement leaves room for Rusoro to resume legal enforcement of the award if the settlement goes unpaid, the company said at the time. Although records in the D.C. federal court case do not show that Rusoro informed the court about the settlement, Judge Leon nevertheless issued a brief order on Wednesday denying Rusoro's bid seeking permission to seize Venezuelan assets. "After considering the briefs of both parties in relation to that motion, and the entire record in this case, this court determines that (a) a reasonable period of time has not elapsed since the entry of judgment in this case such that petitioner may seek to attach respondent's assets to aid in the execution of that judgment pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Section 1610(c); and (b) petitioner has not shown good cause to register the judgment in other judicial districts in the United States pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Section 1963," the judge wrote, not explaining his reasoning. Counsel for Venezuela declined to comment on Wednesday. Counsel for Rusoro could not immediately be reached for comment. Over the last few years, Venezuela's financial situation has become ever more dire as the country has been saddled with billions of dollars worth of judgments issued to foreign investors whose businesses there were expropriated without compensation under former President Hugo Chvez. The judgments against Venezuela from international arbitration tribunals include the more than $1.2 billion arbitral award issued to Rusoro and the $1.2 billion judgment to Crystallex; a more than $372 million arbitral award issued to OI European Group BV; and a nearly $307 million award issued to two Swiss Koch Industries Inc. affiliates. Other pending claims against Venezuela include one filed by Air Canada and one filed by three Dutch ConocoPhillips subsidiaries that could result in an award potentially worth billions of dollars. Meanwhile, there's also the holders of sovereign and PDVSA bonds, along with the holders of certain promissory notes mostly issued by PDVSA. The country has settled several disputes with its creditors, reaching a $2 billion settlement with ConocoPhillips earlier this year and a $1.03 billion settlement with Washington state-based mining company Gold Reserve Inc., although a significant amount of the latter settlement remains unpaid. A settlement between Crystallex and Venezuela that was approved by a Canadian court late last year has apparently not resolved their dispute. So the ruling in the Crystallex case in Delaware had caused many of these creditors to begin taking more definitive action to collect their judgments. In its motion before the court earlier this year seeking permission to begin seizing Venezuela's assets, Rusoro argued that Venezuelan government officials had repeatedly stated that they would defy international courts and tribunals, and would refuse to pay Venezuelas creditors. The company noted that Venezuela had already faced litigation for allegedly looting several of PDVSA's U.S. subsidiaries by having them take on US$ 2.8 billion in debt and transferring the proceeds of this debt out of the U.S. But in response, Venezuela disputed the argument that it intended to defy its creditors, saying Rusoro had based this allegation on a "six-year-old, out-of-context statement" by Venezuelas former president, and that the company has settled "numerous arbitral awards." As for allegations that it had orchestrated fraudulent transfers, Venezuela pointed out that the litigation in question had been brought against PDVSA and its subsidiaries. Venezuela is represented by Stephen K. Wirth, Daniel R. Bernstein, Kent A. Yalowitz, Michael A. Lynn and Seth R. Grantier of Arnold & Porter. Rusoro is represented by James E. Berger and Charlene C. Sun of King & Spalding LLP. The case is Rusoro Mining Ltd. v. Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, case number 1:16-cv-02020, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
