Jeremy Paner Discusses Risks for Oil Companies Following Venezuelan Terrorism Designation by US

Jeremy Paner spoke to Bloomberg about the risks for foreign oil companies operating in Venezuela following the designation of the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) by the Trump administration.

Notably, the designation says the cartel is led by the Venezuelan government and run by the military. According to Paner, this FTO label “significantly increases the risk exposure of oil companies operating in Venezuela.”

This is partially because of the broad wording of the FTO, which can make it hard for companies to know who might pose a risk, given that Venezuela’s military runs ports that are critical to the country’s oil operations.

As Paner mentions, one such company is Chevron, which still operates out of Venezuela amid increasingly adverse conditions. Paner noted that a U.S. Treasury Department license that authorizes Chevron to operate in Venezuela as an exception to sanctions doesn’t shield the company from “extraterritorial civil liability” in the U.S. for harm deemed to be caused by the cartel.

“Those civil actions take years to resolve and are very expensive to defend,” Paner said. “If an oil company knows it is dealing with the cartel, liability is triggered even if it is not significant assistance,” he said, citing a recent Supreme Court case involving an FTO.

Paner added that the companies “face potential extraterritorial U.S. criminal exposure for providing ‘material support’ such as funds or services to the cartel.”

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