Neither Eric Arthur Blair nor Franz Kafka Would Be Surprised

What can you say about the fact that Halliburton filing an ISDS (Investor–State Dispute Settlement) complaint against Venezuela to revover their damage from US sanctions.

As Anna Russel would say, "I'm not making this up, you know." 

This is functionally identical to murdering one's parent and then asking for mercy as an orphan. 

The ISDS is an administrative secret court that allows for private investors to sue governments for engaging actions that might negatively effect their profits.

In this case Halliburton is suing because the Venezuelan Bolívar was devalued and they had to leave the country because of US sanctions.

On December 11, as the Trump administration was escalating its military campaign against Venezuela by trying to impose a total siege on the country’s oil and gas sector, the US oilfield services company Halliburton quietly filed a suit against Venezuela at the World Bank’s international arbitration court, ICSID.

Long-standing readers are well-versed on investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS), a topic we’ve covered in depth over the past decade or so. As Yves pointed out in a recent post on Russia’s decision to use ISDS to go after the EU’s attempts to permanently confiscate Russian assets, the judgments made in these dispute settlements overwhelmingly benefit investors:

These treaties, designed to override the laws and regulations of states in order to give protected status to investors, make a mockery of national sovereignity. ISDS disputes draw on a small community of arbitrators, many of whom were involved in drafting ISDS treaty provisions, with hearing held in secret and typically not appealable. The rising (and correct) perception that the rules were gutting labor rights and environmental protection was instrumental to stopping their reach being extended further in the US. But it seems no existing ISDS provisions have been unwound.

What makes this case particularly pernicious is that a large part of the losses and foregone profits Halliburton is seeking to claw back stems from Washington’s economic sanctions on Venezuela. What’s more, the case was filed at the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, to which Venezuela has not even been party since 2012.

To say that this is Orwellian or Kafkaesque would be an understatement.

………

There is currently very little information available on the ISDS case filed by Halliburton. The following is an excerpt of a firewalled article published by the Global Arbitration Review that was translated into Spanish and posted by the Madrid-based legal firm Bullard Falla Excurra on its LinkedIn page (translated back into English by yours truly, emphasis also my own):

On December 11, 2025, Halliburton filed a claim against Venezuela with the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) under the Barbados-Venezuela Bilateral Investment Treaty. The case will be processed under the Additional Facility Rules, given that Venezuela withdrew from the ICSID Convention in 2012. The dispute stems from Halliburton’s gradual withdrawal from the Venezuelan market between 2016 and 2020, after reporting losses of approximately US$199 million. These losses were attributed to the devaluation of the Venezuelan bolívar and the deteriorating economic and political conditions in Venezuela, which affected its ability to meet payments to its clients, including PDVSA, the state-owned oil company. Halliburton also notes that changes in the Venezuelan government’s exchange rate and US sanctions further complicated the viability of its operations in the country. Halliburton, which had operated in Venezuela since 1940, was forced to cease operations in 2020 [by US sanctions], although it maintained local assets and equipment in the country.

It seems to me that filing an action in a court that has no jurisdiction in response to actions that were taken by a party not a party to the action is fraud, and perhaps attempted extortion.

While Venezuela does not have much in the way of foreign reserves, it seems to me that they do have a court system to charge the people involved, including the members sitting on the ISDS panel with fraud and extortion, and then offer rewards in the low 6 figures for their delivery to Caracas.