The Government of Venezuela denounced this Sunday the illegal sale of the Citgo Petroleum company, a subsidiary in the United States of the state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), after a judicial decision by the US court of the Delaware district, an action that constitutes an act of «Modern piracy», as reported the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Jorge Arreaza, through the Twitter social network.
The diplomat released an official statement in which the Venezuelan Executive emphasizes that such sentence is evidence of a plan by the Donald Trump administration to confiscate the assets owned by Venezuela and its PDVSA companies, and for this they uses as an accomplice the deputy under contempt, Juan Guaidó.
Following, the full text of the Communiqué:
«The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela denounces that, on May 22, 2020, the District Court of Delaware, United States, issued a decision by which it ordered to carry out the procedures for the judicial sale of the shares of the Venezuelan state-owned company Citgo Petroleum belonging to PDV Holding, a company owned by Petróleos de Venezuela, SA (PDVSA).
With this ruling, the existence of a plan by the US government to confiscate PDVSA assets in the United States is clear. For such purposes, they have delegated to deputy Juan Guaidó and his accomplices, the establishment of a fraudulent representation of the Republic and PDVSA, which is not only illegal, but acts to the detriment of the national interest, for the benefit of interventionist intentions.
The judgment seeks to execute an award issued by the Arbitration Tribunal of the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), for a value of 1.2 billion dollars, based on a claim made by the Canadian company Crystallex against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela even though neither PDVSA, Citgo, nor PDV Holding are debtors of Crystallex nor were they subject to the procedure before the ICSID Arbitration Tribunal.
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela once again warns that judicial representatives who have tried to act on behalf of the Republic and PDVSA in US courts lack any legitimacy to do so. On the contrary, Venezuela has denounced the very serious fact that the lawyer who fraudulently pretends to represent the Republic, has actually worked as a legal adviser to the Crystallex company, and is the one who has promoted the thesis according to which he intends to confuse as one the heritage of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the heritage of PDVSA.
Faced with this act of arbitrariness and modern piracy, the international community, particularly those with investments in the United States, should remain very vigilant in this case, since it is indicative of the actions that the United States is willing to carry out, even against of the international and internal legal order, to assert their interests on strategic foreign investments.
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, through its legitimate representatives, will continue to carry out the defense of the heritage of all Venezuelans, anywhere in the world, for which it reserves all actions that may take place at the international level and in the jurisdiction of the United States, to assert its «sovereign rights».