Exxon Called `Forum-Shopping Tourists' by PDVSA in Asset Case

A lawyer for Petroleos de Venezuela SA called Exxon Mobil Corp. ``forum-shopping tourists'' in a case over a U.K. court order freezing $12 billion of the Venezuelan state oil company's assets. Petroleos de Venezuela, known as PDVSA, told a London court that the company had too few contacts to the U.K. for a court to freeze its assets around the world, said PDVSA lawyer Gordon Pollock, QC. PDVSA is a ``stranger to this country, and the same could of course be said of Exxon,'' Pollock said today on the second day of a hearing in the case.