The whole point of this latest little move by Hugo (and you can bet it was Hugo who asked the lawyers to find some way out of his ICSID potential liability) is to use another authority to control who can and who can't mine gold in Vz.

I believe that KRY and GRZ will get the environmental and construction permits in the near future (before or just after the formal papers are filed with the ICSID) so the Vz lawyers can mount a defence in the cases. Right now they have nothing to offer as a defence but in Hugo's mind he thinks that giving permits will make the ICSID case vanish!

Of course even if they then allowed the building of the mines without interference (using US dollars converted to Bolivars at the 2.15 rate therefore greatly assisting their balance of payments problems) then down the road the miners would be going cap in hand to the Cadivi (Foreign Exchange Administration Commission) every time to beg for a few US dollars (or other foreign currency) in exchange for their near worthless Bolivars. By awarding or withholding these hard currency permits the Cadivi can hold every miner to ransom.

KRY may have been able to fiddle the rules previously selling much of their small output of gold on parallel markets, but that would not be possible with the much greater output from LC. Real money is needed to Vz to import food and you can imagine the rant that would ensue if he caught a gold miner dealing outside the CB and the Cadivi "stealing the food from the mouths of our children"!

This control is only possible if the government can hold the currency peg to 2.15 even when the real market rate is closer to 6.5. If at any time the bolivar became a free trading currency then the scam is up, but unfortunately there is little anyone can do to force that.