UK court overturns Venezuela’s gold war judgment

The Court of Appeal of England granted the Central Bank of Venezuela an appeal against the ruling made by Judge Teare on July 2, which denied access of the Venezuelan bank to the gold bullion reserves stored in the Bank of England valued at around 1.8 billion euros.

The court understands that the judgment was erroneous when considering that the terms of the English government’s recognition of Juan Guaidó as president of Venezuela in law excluded the possibility that the British government, however, also recognized Nicolás Maduro as “de facto” president.

Specifically, the new order issued understands that the UK Government may expressly recognize a person de jure and at the same time recognize another person de facto.

In this way, the court has ordered that the English courts carry out a detailed factual investigation in which the diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and Venezuela, as well as other relevant factors, are explained and detailed, to determine whether the United Kingdom Government recognizes that Maduro does continue to exercise ‘de facto’ powers as head of state.

The Venezuelan issuing institute, represented by Zaiwalla & Co, filed a lawsuit last May against the Bank of England to access part of the 1.8 billion euros that the Venezuelan Administration had deposited in London.

Venezuela’s intention is to allocate these reserves to a United Nations program to acquire humanitarian aid, medicines and equipment necessary to combat the coronavirus pandemic in Venezuela.

K. Tovar

Source: La Voz de Galicia