Can you imagine having Richard or Bob's jobs trying to deal with this situation. We know how frustrated we are, can you imagine being in the position of having a potential multi-billion dollar deal and your partner won't tell you why they won't complete the deal.

As a matter of fact...yes I can. After having my partner continue to stonewall me by not answering a direct question as to what the problem was, I would put them on notice that they had two weeks to answer the F'n question after which IA would be filed. So, personally, I would have filed for arbitration two weeks after the expiration of the first milestone date last June (given your scenario). Oooops...almost forgot....for the first six months of "no deal" everything was fine (per KRY management) with Venezuela and the deal. It was simply a matter of the extreme complexity of the deal and the fact that it was being done in three languages and interrupted by numerous holidays and "bad luck" Chinese calender dates. We should have filed for arbitration two years ago and started the clock ticking. There would have been nothing to prevent us from pursuing negotiations or offering the Chinese solution had we taken that approach.

I can imagine how the negotiations go if, as you suggest, Venezuela simply will not tell us what the problem is:

Fung: What's the problem?

Vz: We're not going to tell you.

Fung: Please tell me.

Vz: No...maybe later

Fung: When?

Vz: Manyana

Fung (later): Are you ready to tell me what the problem is now?

Vz: Ahhhh. No. etc. etc. etc.