Wednesday, February 13, 2008
U.S. District Judge Deborah A. Batts says probable that Exxon Mobil will succeed in its legal battle against PDVSA...
A federal judge in Manhattan on Wednesday confirmed the freezing of $300 million in cash held by Venezuela's state-run oil company, finding it probable that Exxon Mobil Corp. will succeed in its legal battle against the company. U.S. District Judge Deborah A. Batts confirmed the 'order of attachment' after listening to arguments from lawyers for both sides.
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REALITY CHECK:
ReplyDeleteLet's be clear here about what's actually going on regarding the Exxon-Mobil action against PdVSA.
The only legitimate reason why someone would go to a court to have another's assets seized, would be because there was a demonstrably good chance that the latter would simply make off with any goods in question before some decision was reached -- i.e. likely against them. However, neither PdVSA nor the venezuelan government has ever given anyone reason or opportunity to believe that they were in any way a 'flight risk' (or whatever it's called in grubby business law like this) -- let alone that Exxon-Mobil could ever expect to win such huge sums as the amounts they asked the judge to seize for them. In fact, PdVSA willingly went into arbitration with Exxon-Mobil over the Orinoco development -- and was apparently clearly bargaining in good faith at the time of this blind-side and under-handed move by Exxon-Mobil. The company really has no leg to stand on here -- yet they could and did simply go out and get themselves a judgement out of the blue, clearly intended to be merely a pressure tactic aimed at getting PdVSA to concede to them a better outcome in the arbitration. Which only goes to prove that the law is an ass -- and that judges can be tools, if not simply outright corrupt or stupid or both.
Fact of the matter is, Exxon-Mobil is clearly only applying political pressure on PdVSA and the venezuelan government here because they can; and because they also know they can get some dumb judge or other in the Empire to give them exactly what they want -- the true facts of the matter be damned: the whole point of the exercise being to smear PdVSA and Venezuela and cast doubt on their character. Which is where the political angle comes in -- so PdVSA and Venezuela are right on the money regarding such a ploy.
The smart thing for PdVSA and the venezuelan government to do is what they're doing now: making Exxon-Mobil pay, politically, in other ways -- and probably to redouble their efforts to see to it that Exxon-Mobil gets the least amount of compensation possible from the arbitration case. And then they're out of the picture -- permanently.
Smart move, Exxon.
And that includes them thinking they're going to be riding back in on the backs of the U.S. marines. Forget that one. But they're welcome to try.