(Energy Analytics Institute, Piero Stewart, 8.Aug2018) – U.S. drilling company Helmerich & Payne won a judgment from the U.S. Court of Appeal to sue Venezuela for the expropriation of the company’s investments in Venezuela.
This was only a preliminary jurisdictional issue, not a money judgment, mind you — just the right to sue Venezuela after almost 7 years of litigation! H&P has not even gotten to present the heart of the case yet, writes Caracas Capital Markets Managing Partner Russ Dallen in an emailed note to clients.
Unless Venezuela asks for an en banc hearing before the whole Court of Appeals (the Court of Appeals denied an en banc hearing on the case’s first trip through in 2015) and/or appeals it to the Supreme Court, the case will now return to the U.S. District Court for the more substantial hearings.
This all began when Venezuela stopped paying H&P and finally on June 30, 2010, when Helmerich and Payne’s Venezuelan subsidiary and all its property and equipment (including 11 drills) were seized by the Venezuelan government, concluded Dallen, also the Editor-in-Chief of Latin America Herald Tribune.
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