Region: Venezuela

An UNCITRAL tribunal has ordered Venezuela to pay US$105 million to a Barbadian subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum after finding the state liable for discriminatory conduct in its payment of dividends from an oil and gas venture.

18 November 2022

UPDATED: Executives at a Dutch company say they are considering potential arbitration claims worth billions of dollars against PDVSA after the Venezuelan state entity expropriated their interest in a joint venture.

08 November 2022

Venezuela has successfully challenged Wolfgang Peter as arbitrator in an investment treaty case after raising concerns he could be influenced by the views of his Peter & Kim colleague Pierre Tercier in a similar dispute.

12 October 2022

The Paris Court of Appeal has refused to resurrect a US$600 million BIT claim brought by two real estate investors against Venezuela, ruling the arbitrators were right to find the treaty’s offer of UNCITRAL arbitration was “obsolete”.

03 October 2022

Venezuela has failed to disqualify two members of an ICSID committee hearing its bid to overturn a US$9 billion award won by ConocoPhillips, after Ian Binnie KC found no substance to allegations that the pair and the proceeding as a whole had been “corrupted” by departing panellist Kevin Kim.

28 September 2022

A US court has granted ConocoPhillips’ bid to enforce a US$9 billion ICSID award against Venezuela over three oil projects that were expropriated in 2007, finding there is no reason to think the state is likely to succeed in having it annulled.

22 August 2022

Two bottlemaking companies that saw their billion-dollar ICSID claim against Venezuela thrown out four years ago have refiled the case – as the state fails to annul a coffee investor’s US$42 million award in a separate dispute.

28 July 2022

Venezuela must arbitrate a €425 million dispute with the owners and insurer of a cruise ship over a bizarre maritime showdown that resulted in the sinking of a navy patrol boat, a London court has ruled, while refusing to block the state from pursuing foreign parallel litigation.

29 June 2022

Following arbitrator Kevin Kim’s resignation from an ICSID annulment committee hearing Venezuela’s bid to overturn a US$9 billion award in favour of ConocoPhillips, the state has challenged two more panel members on the basis that they were “corrupted” by his actions.

21 June 2022

Venezuela has failed to overturn an award upholding jurisdiction over a US$185 million investment arbitration brought by US-based cleaning products group Clorox, with a Swiss court dismissing arguments that the claim – on remand to the tribunal – was an example of abusive treaty shopping.

17 June 2022