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PDVSA US Litigation Trust, the farce brought by thug David Boies against Francisco Morillo, Helsinge, Trafigura, Vitol, Glencore et al was dismissed by Judge Darrin Gayles last Friday, for "lack of subject matter jurisdiction." The good thing is that Boies and his merry band of co-conspirators won't be able to steal 66% of whatever proceeds would've been obtained through that civil action in Florida.

Hugo Chavez used to rule through TV screens. Never one for orthodoxy, the putschist's command of telecasts was legendary. He rose to power thanks to his "por ahora" speech in 1992, calling rebel armed forces to surrender, and once in power, he commandeered airwaves like no one had ever done before, or since. Nicolas Maduro doesn't have that gift, his public addresses are very disagreable events. And then Venezuela has produced another first in Juan Guaidó: government by hashtag.

Expectedly the Lima Group just said it won't support military intervention in Venezuela. Nothing new there really. No South American nation is about to attack another, despite Venezuelans' baseless hopes to that effect. What puzzles is the lack of imagination that Juan Guaidó, Venezuela's opposition, and its coalition of friendly nations have shown thus far. U.S.

Last week I was asked to quantify the size of the loot at PDVSA during an interview. This site has been crunching some numbers in that regard. Whatever the approach, Rafael Ramirez's reign looks very grim. It could be owing to the fact that Ramirez was Minister of Energy and CEO of PDVSA -at the same time- for most of that period. That is, Minister Ramirez was responsible to keep PDVSA's CEO Ramirez in check, something entirely unfeasible.

There seems to be a degree of discrimination regarding international criminal investigations involving U.S. justice and law enforcement. The whole world was glad to see America putting Sepp Blatter out of business for a little while. When it comes to rampant corruption in oil companies, Petrobras seems to be on everyone's lips, due in our opinion to Sergio Moro's quixotic LavaJato (carwash) probe in Brazil.

Helsinge Inc, a little venture controlled by Francisco Morillo, Leonardo Baquero and Daniel Lutz that managed to win almost every single PDVSA bid in which it participated, stands accused of having defrauded billions of dollars from PDVSA. It did so for many years, through a remarkably simple method: it gained real time access to PDVSA's bidding system, which allowed itself and its partners (Glencore, Trafigura, Vitol, Lukoil, etc.) to place winning bids at the very last minute.

Picture the following: in recent visit to Washington, I proposed to Pedro Burelli -for many years esteemed friend- that, given that Juan Guaidó's interim administration was looking to recoup lost funds to help with Venezuela's reconstruction, legal counsel of PDVSA in Geneva lawsuit against Helsinge, Trafigura, Glencore, Lukoil, Vitol et al ought to be replaced. Reason is simple: current one (Canonica) came to it thanks to Wilmer Ruperti.

What's the point of imposing a sanctions regime against wretched Nicolas Maduro and leaving the back door open? This is a pertinent question in our opinion. Venezuela / PDVSA can not issue any more debt as per Executive  Order  13808 of August 24, 2017.