How have U.S. courts treated ICSID and ICC arbitration awards against Venezuela when creditors sought enforcement?

1. U.S. courts have enforced large ICSID and ICC awards against Venezuela and its companies

Federal courts have confirmed and allowed collection efforts on multi-billion-dollar ICSID and ICC awards, including ConocoPhillips’ multi-billion ICSID award and related ICC award enforcement campaigns that courts have permitted creditors to press against Venezuelan entities and assets in the U.S. ^{[1] [5]}. Courts in the District of Columbia and in Delaware have been active venues where ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips affiliates have obtained judgments and pathways to seize or attach assets tied to PDVSA or its U.S. subsidiaries ^{[6] [7] [8]}.

2. FSIA and the ICSID Convention are central but interpreted differently across courts

Courts treating ICSID awards recognize that Article 54 of the ICSID Convention creates a treaty-backed right enforceable in U.S. courts, but judges have grappled with whether FSIA procedures and sovereign-immunity defenses apply to ICSID recognition and enforcement; some decisions have held FSIA exceptions allow enforcement while others warned against ex parte procedures that short-circuit FSIA’s requirements ^{[2] [9]}. The Second Circuit’s Mobil Cerro Negro decision, and commentary arising from it, cautioned that recognition must align with FSIA principles even as other courts have enforced ICSID awards under the treaty-based jurisdictional hook ^{[9] [2]}.

3. Alter-ego and corporate-separateness arguments have been decisive enforcement tools—and battlegrounds

To reach assets of PDVSA or its Delaware subsidiaries, creditors have advanced alter-ego theories alleging that state corporations are Venezuela’s functional arm; U.S. courts have sometimes accepted that theory to allow enforcement against corporate shares and foreign subsidiaries, a path opened most recently in ConocoPhillips’ Third Circuit victory permitting enforcement against PDV Holding shares in Delaware ^{[1] [10] [3]}. Opponents challenge those moves as inconsistent with positions taken in the underlying arbitrations—raising collateral estoppel and inconsistent-positions defenses that courts have been asked to resolve ^[10].

4. Annulment proceedings, stays at ICSID, and competing Venezuelan representations complicate domestic enforcement

ICSID’s internal procedures can stay enforcement while annulment applications are pending—a fact relied on by Venezuela in ConocoPhillips and other matters—yet ICSID committees have at times denied annulment, prompting renewed enforcement in U.S. courts; concurrently, U.S. judges have had to decide whether tribunals properly recognized which Venezuelan actors could appear (Maduro vs. Guaidó issues), with courts ultimately enforcing awards while rejecting some procedural due-process challenges raised by Venezuela ^{[4] [11] [12] [6]}.

5. The pattern: favorable enforcement outcomes tempered by procedural hurdles and evolving doctrines

The cumulative enforcement record shows U.S. courts generally receptive to converting ICSID and ICC awards into domestic judgments and permitting asset-targeting strategies, but those results are achieved after litigation over FSIA applicability, alter-ego proof, inconsistent-positions defenses, and ICSID annulment/stay timelines; practitioners and law firms representing creditors have highlighted wins while observers caution that doctrine remains unsettled and case-specific ^{[1] [3] [7]}.

6. Stakes, incentives, and competing narratives

Law firms and creditor groups emphasize precedents that broaden recovery routes against Venezuela’s assets in the U.S., an incentive-driven narrative visible in firm alerts; Venezuela and allied commentators frame enforcement as politically charged or procedurally flawed, highlighting annulment requests and sovereign-immunity arguments—both perspectives are present in the record, and courts have repeatedly acted as gatekeepers weighing legal form over political narrative ^{[1] [5] [4]}.