From all reports, Gold Reserve totally crushed Venezuela at the final damages hearing in Paris. Nobody except the American attorneys showed up for Venezuela and they had a very bad time of it.

Of course Doug Belanger, a true professional, and CEO with a signficant investment in the outcome was at the hearing.

Venezuela had no alternate damages argument other than the concession was totally worthless, a very very bad argument as it leaves the arbitrators no way to "split the baby" and make everyone a little unhappy. The only viable damages argument was made by the GRZ experts.

The Gold Reserve valuation experts were acknowledged by both parties as world class, and I expect that we will be using the same folks or at least some of the others with top credentials.

The last written submission due December 23 is not the typical post hearing brief, but is to address what the parties expect the arbitrators to address in the award. While this may seem innocuous, it is *really* bad for Venezuela -- they get to ask the panel to address whatever questions that Venezuela hopes will somehow help them. Sadly for them, all it does is make it an airtight award. Since Venezuela presented no credible evidence on liability or damages, it is all GRZ evidence driving the award.

My opinion, Gold Reserve hit it out of the park and Venezuela never even had a viable case. They never really contested liability and had no damages argument other than that the concession they expropriated had no value -- right that seems like a good argument, lol. I expect a huge award (well above my initial $1 billion expectation) and I have purchased more Gold Reserve shares over the past few days as a consequence.

How does this matter to us? It indicates that Venezuela will have no liability argument in our case either (as IMO we have an even better case), they better come up with a better damages argument since they continue to brag about the 17+ million ounces in LC, and they have no chance of winning on liability.

As an aside, Belanger seems to think that our post hearing time frame will be much shorter than GRZ since we have two arbitrators that are world class damages experts.

Bottom line, sorry for the optimism Don (I hate to ruin your holidays), but our case is excellent and all signs indicate a better outcome than I had expected initially despite Bob "I can always get financing" Fung's incredibly poor ability to obtain financing at a reasonable cost, making him IMO the biggest joke in the history of Canadian finance. Sorry, a little personal indulgence there.

Despite Bob's complete ineptitude, many of us will come out whole or better.

If you can't tell, the GRZ hearing results really have me pumped up, but now I will try to go back into hibernation and await the next year with anticipation.

Good luck and happy upcoming holidays to all! NB

And please all, try to agree or disagree with class and avoid the Yahoo board approach. Thanks.