Venezuelan parliament rejects ‘illegal’ asset freeze

The president of the Venezuela’s National Assembly’s Energy and Mines Committee, Angel Rodriguez, rejected the illegal judicial decision on behalf of British, US and Dutch courts, of freezing the Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) assets in their countries, as part of a lawsuit brought by the US Exxon Mobil, due to the nationalisation of the Orinoco Belt, which took place last May. 'This process has been part of the full oil sovereignty exercise on Venezuelan territory, so any argument or lawsuit is incumbent only in national courts. Thus, the National Assembly categorically rejects the oil transnational company intentions of having influence on the international arbitration, which is a colonialist practice established on the oil opening in the ’90s and which is contrary to the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.'