Venezuela Under Fire for Cashing Out Citgo

When Venezuela could not sell Citgo, it had PDVSA begin extracting "as much value as possible from CITGO," according to the complaint. Crytallex says "PDVSA did so by orchestrating a series of debt offerings and asset transfers among PDVSA and its subsidiaries PDVH and Citgo Holding that converted Citgo's value to cash, then removing those funds from the United States and transferring them into PDVSA's coffers in Venezuela." After issuing nearly $2.8 billion in debt, Citgo transferred those proceeds to PDVH as shareholder dividend, according to the complaint.  Crystallex says the maneuver left Citgo "insolvent on an accounting basis." The Canadian company says it expects the arbitration proceedings against Venezuela in connection to the nationalization of its mining assets to conclude with a $3.1 billion judgment later this year. More…