'Although Venezuela first sought to settle claims of foreign investors whose business assets were expropriated or subjected to forced sale, there are now at least ten pending claims arising from expropriations in the oil and gas, mining, telecommunications and cement production sectors. Of interest to Canadian investors is the US$3.8 billion claim by Crystallex International Corporation for the expropriation of its Las Cristinas gold mining project. Crystallex recently announced a US$120 million public offering of rights to share in the proceeds of any award or settlement in the arbitration, as a means of meeting its current debt obligations and financing its claim'

"Finally, foreign investors should be mindful that investment treaty awards can be difficult to enforce. While states are deemed to have waived sovereign immunity for the purposes of enforcement of awards, immunity is not waived for the purposes of execution against their sovereign assets. Thus, if a state is unwilling or unable to pay an award, the claimant must find and execute against commercial assets it owns. Even the investors in Crystallex’s litigation participation fund face the risk that Venezuela may refuse to honor, or be unable to pay, the very substantial arbitral award sought by Crystallex."