Maduro Board of the Central Bank of Venezuela v Guaido Board of the Central Bank of Venezuela 2021 UKSC 57 - 20 December 2021
Country
Year
2021
Summary
Introduction
This appeal raises fundamental issues concerning the recognition of a foreign head of state, the foreign act of state doctrine and their inter-relationship.
The central question arising on this appeal is which of two contending claimants is entitled to give instructions to financial institutions within this jurisdiction on behalf of the Central Bank of Venezuela (the "BCV") and to represent the BCV in a London Court of International Arbitration ("LCIA") arbitration. The Bank of England (the "BoE") holds gold reserves of about US$1.95 billion for the BCV, while Deutsche Bank ("DB") has paid the proceeds of a gold swap contract owed to the BCV in the sum of about US$120m to court-appointed receivers (the "Receivers") to hold on behalf of the BCV. The two competing claimants to the funds held by the BoE and the Receivers have been referred to in these proceedings as the "Maduro Board" and the "Guaidó Board". They each claim to be entitled to represent the BCV in relation to the assets of the BCV in this jurisdiction.
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