HOUSTON (Reuters) – Lawyers representing Venezuela on Tuesday requested a four-month pause in a U.S. court-ordered auction of shares in a parent company of Houston-based oil refiner Citgo Petroleum to pay creditors, according to a filing in Delaware district court.
Venezuelan-owned Citgo is the crown jewel of the South American country's overseas assets. Creditors have targeted the refiner as they seek compensation for the wave of nationalizations by the late President Hugo Chavez and failed debt payments by President Nicolas Maduro.
The court was scheduled to reveal the name of the auction's winning bidder and the terms of the sale on Monday, but as of Tuesday morning no lawsuit had been filed against the winner.
The judicial official who oversaw the auction, Robert Pincus, did not respond to requests for comment.
“Complications in the sale process threaten to undermine” the court's desire to obtain a high price for the shares of Citgo's parent company for creditors seeking more than $21 billion, the lawyers wrote.
They cited Venezuela's disputed July presidential election, which has plunged the country into political chaos, and recent parallel lawsuits filed in a U.S. court by Venezuelan bondholders seeking compensation for defaults.
The rulings involving PDVSA bondholders from 2020 “risk unnecessarily diverting sales proceeds” from Delaware judgment creditors, Venezuelan lawyers said in the court motion.
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