Venezuela’s creditors could threaten to seize not just Citgo Petroleum Corp. but other state-owned assets in an effort to collect on debts incurred under the ruling leftist regime, according to a lawyer for the country’s national oil company, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Joseph Pizzurro, who represents oil giant Petróleos de Venezuela SA, said during an appeals court hearing in Philadelphia that the seizure of its prized refining subsidiary Citgo to cover a $1.4 billion debt would open up other public enterprises owned by foreign countries to debt-collection lawsuits. The dispute concerns an arbitration award obtained by Crystallex International Corp., a defunct Canadian miner that targeted Citgo in U.S. court for compensation over a failed mining venture in Venezuela. Crystallex won a court order in Delaware last year that allowed it to seize shares in Citgo’s U.S. corporate parent. But the company has been blocked from selling those shares by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit while it weighs if the seizure was valid. The appeals court on Monday deferred a ruling on Crystallex’s bid to conduct the sale, a request that has implications for the Trump administration’s foreign policy and the U.S.-backed opposition government in Caracas. Other companies with money judgments against Venezuela are already following Crystallex’s lead, “lining up at the courthouse door in Delaware” to carve up Citgo, Pizzurro said.
