On October 18, 2023, following the signing of an electoral roadmap between Venezuela’s Unitary Platform and representatives of the Maduro regime, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)...more
US DOJ recently announced a settlement of federal and state natural resource damage (NRD) claims asserted by federal and state trustees under the Oil Pollution Act (OPA) and state law against CITGO Petroleum Corporation...more
In a novel and aggressive move likely aimed at garnering goodwill with federal regulators, Venezuelan state-owned entity CITGO Petroleum Company (“CITGO”) has sued its former agent for harm CITGO alleges was caused by the...more
The U.S. Department of the Treasury on Oct. 21, 2019, renewed for three months a license granted to several U.S. oil companies so that they may continue operating in the country until Jan. 22, 2020. Chevron is the only...more
On March 5, 2019, King & Spalding hosted an Energy Forum, titled “Shifting Dynamics in Latin America”, to discuss the political and regulatory changes in Latin America and their impact on investments in energy. Latin...more
Late last week, a California jury found Monsanto liable in the first of a series of cases accusing the Roundup weedkiller maker of causing plaintiff Dewayne Johnson’s non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, awarding him an incredible $289...more
Citgo Petroleum received a Valentine’s gift of sorts from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on February 14, in United States v. Citgo Petroleum Corporation. The Court affirmed an $81MM civil penalty assessed by the district...more
As the Petrobras corruption scandal seems to be going strong, we turn our attention to what may be the most corrupt of all the national energy companies, the Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA)....more
Recently, industry won a major legal victory regarding liability—or lack thereof—for unintentional and indirect bird deaths under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA). Unfortunately, that victory could be short lived,...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in United States v. CITGO Petroleum Corp., No. 14-40128 (5th Cir. September 4, 2015), reversed the district court’s convictions of Citgo Petroleum Corp. (Citgo) for alleged...more
USA v. Citgo Petroleum highlights the excruciating degree of detail in federal regulations and the gymnastics the EPA will employ justify a prosecution. The Fifth Circuit has reversed Citgo Petroleum’s conviction for...more
On September 4, 2015, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a ruling in United States v. CITGO that a “taking” subject to prosecution under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) does not include the...more
The recent Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that unintentional bird deaths under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (“MBTA”) are not “takes” under the MBTA and therefore not subject to criminal liability, adds fodder to the...more
On September 4, 2015, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed convictions of CITGO Petroleum Corporation and CITGO Refining and Chemical Company, L.P. (collectively "Citgo"), and in so doing placed potentially...more