Welcome to the Crystallex HUB on AGORACOM

Crystallex International Corporation is a Canadian-based gold company with a successful record of developing and operating gold mines in Venezuela and elsewhere in South America

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Message: Does anyone expect VZ to pay up after an award?

Short answer: yes.

Once we get an award, there is no appeal and it is incredibly easy to enforce in any jurisdiction that is a member of the New York Convention where Venezuela has assets or bank accounts. The United States is a very common venue to enforce such awards. Take a look at 9 U.S.C. Chapter 2 and note that the word "shall" has great meaning:

"Within three years after an arbitral award falling under the Convention is made, any party to the arbitration may apply to any court having jurisdiction under this chapter for an order confirming the award as against any other party to the arbitration. The court shall confirm the award unless it finds one of the grounds for refusal or deferral of recognition or enforcement of the award specified in the said Convention." 9 U.S.C. ยง 207

The grounds are so limited as to be extremely rare and it is an exceptional situation where the court does not just confirm the award and grant enforcement powers as a matter of routine.

So it quite simple and quick to make an application to confirm and enforce the award in a U.S. District Court. It is a streamlined process and the money for the roughly 1 million barrels a day they ship to the Gulf Coast refiners is available. And sadly for them, for the foreseeable future there is nowhere else to sell that heavy sludge. Moreover, they actually import several hundred thousand barrels a day of fuel since Venezuela has limited refining capacity.

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