Venezuela

Bidders in a U.S. court auction of shares that will decide the ownership of Venezuela-owned U.S. oil refiner Citgo Petroleum can be required to say if their binding offers cover claims by Venezuela bondholders in a separate court action, a U.S. District Court judge ruled on Friday, Reuters reported. The decision lets bidders seeking to place multi-billion dollar offers for a Citgo parent's shares to be asked if they plan to set aside cash or consider how they may accommodate Venezuela 2020 note holders seeking payment of $3 billion in principal debt.

After years of fits and starts, Venezuela is setting the stage for one of the largest and most complex debt restructurings in decades — unwinding a $154 billion web of defaulted bonds, loans and legal judgments owed to creditors from Wall Street to Russia, Bloomberg News reported. President Nicolas Maduro’s government’s recent hiring of Rothschild & Co. as a financial adviser marks a first step in a massive undertaking that’s likely to drag on for years.

Venezuela's state-run oil company PDVSA plans to increase digital currency usage in its crude and fuel exports as the U.S. reimposes oil sanctions on the country, Reuters reported. The U.S. Treasury Department last week gave PDVSA's customers and providers until May 31 to wind down transactions under a general license it did not renew due to a lack of electoral reforms. The move will make it more difficult for the country to increase oil output and exports as companies will have to wait for individual U.S. authorizations to do business with Venezuela.

The socialist government of Venezuela is discussing compensation with at least two Colombian companies whose assets were seized under late President Hugo Chávez, Bloomberg News reported. Colombia’s largest cement maker, Cementos Argos SA, is in talks involving the possible takeover of a state-owned cement plant near Venezuela’s Caribbean coast, according to German Umaña, Colombia’s minister of commerce, trade and tourism. An expropriated subsidiary of Cali-based sugar exporter Comercializadora Internacional de Azúcares y Mieles, Ciamsa, is also in negotiations for compensation, Umaña said.

Venezuela's consumer price growth hit in March hit 1.2%, maintaining the same pace as February, the country's central bank said on Thursday, Reuters reported. March's inflation is the lowest since August 2022. The country's 12-month inflation through last month stood at 67.75%, according to Reuters calculations based on central bank figures. Venezuela's government is redoubling efforts to control inflation by holding the exchange rate at 36 bolivars to the dollar, while weighing its spending amid an election year.

The highest bid received in a U.S. auction of shares that will decide the fate of Venezuela-owned oil refiner Citgo Petroleum was $7.3 billion, enough to cover only a third of court-approved claims, Reuters reported. A federal court in Delaware is auctioning the shares of a parent of Venezuela's foreign crown jewel, Houston-based Citgo, that it found liable for the South American country's debt defaults and expropriations. Creditors have flocked to Delaware to press claims totaling $21.3 billion in a case first brought nearly seven years ago by miner Crystallex.

After the U.S. dropped a broad array of sanctions against Venezuela in October, it warned that it could reimpose all of them, except one. The White House admitted that its ban on buying Venezuelan bonds was a failure that had potentially benefited enemies of the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported. Behind the scenes, a group of powerful Wall Street investors had been feeding Washington a stream of evidence that showed Venezuelan bonds were being traded by investors with ties to Russia. They said Moscow was hoping to gain influence in the U.S.’s backyard.

The Biden administration’s rollback of sanctions against Venezuela is offering a helping hand to bondholders owed $63 billion from the government in Caracas, many of whom haven’t been paid a dime in nearly six years, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Since the Biden administration loosened sanctions on President Nicolás Maduro’s government last week and allowed U.S. investors to once again buy and sell Venezuelan debt, trading in the South American country’s sovereign bonds has intensified and prices are rallying.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York on Wednesday defended its plan to cut off a Puerto Rican lender's access to the U.S. central banking system following a federal crackdown on banks with links to Venezuela, Reuters reported. In July, Banco San Juan Internacional (BSJI) sued the New York Fed to halt the looming termination of its "master account," which lets banks access the Fed's electronic payment system, because of concerns about its compliance with U.S. sanctions and anti-money laundering rules.

Negotiators and officials representing Venezuela are opposing a court-ordered auction of shares in a parent of oil refiner Citgo Petroleum to pay creditors claiming more than $10 billion from expropriations and debt defaults, Reuters reported Some 20 creditors with arbitration awards or lawsuits against Venezuela and its state oil company PDVSA on Monday asked a federal court in Delaware to register their cases so they can participate in the October-scheduled auction. The auction puts priority on when claims were filed.