No good faith
Dead men don’t pay
The World Bank’s ICSID Arbitration Panel ruled a few days ago that Venezuela lacked “good faith” and did not adequately compensate ConocoPhillips for the seizure of the latter’s assets back in 2007. Speculation is running rampant about how much money PDVSA will now have to fork over. PDVSA bonds fell when the ruling became public – clearly, the market believes PDVSA will have no choice but to pay, or as we say in Venezuela, get off from the mule.
ConocoPhillips obviously cheered the decision. Meanwhile, the government’s response has been muted. Rabid chavista propaganda sites are already spinning the government line – this is totally unfair, and we’re going to appeal. It’s not clear to me how far that will get them. Maduro, to my knowledge, has not talked about this obvious setback.
We’re going to leave the comments forum open so that people more knowledgeable than us can give us further background.
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