Venezuela denounces decision for SAIC in contract dispute (oil)

[phoebe]

Looks like Bush admin. is once again ramping up their bias against Venezula.

(For those DU'ers who don't remember, SAIC was involved in the "report" on Diebold in Maryland, concluding that Diebold voting machines are "reliable")

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20040721-1446-cnssaic.html

WASHINGTON – Officials of the Venezuela government and its oil company Wednesday vigorously denounced a U.S. agency's decision on a contract dispute in favor of San Diego-based SAIC, claiming the ruling ignored both the facts and the law.


The Venezuelan ambassador and officials of the government-owned Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. said they would seek to have the dispute arbitrated by the International Chamber of Commerce. But if that failed, which they predicted, Venezuela would seek to overturn the "blatantly political" decision through direct negotiations with the U.S. government, Thomas Wilner, PDVSA's American legal adviser, said at a news conference.

snip

Wilner said the ruling in SAIC's favor was "the strangest determination" he had seen in 35 years of legal practice in Washington. "It has absolutely no basis in fact or in law," he said.

Wilner said the OPIC decision ignores the fact that SAIC made $40 million on an investment of $1,200 in the joint venture with PDVSA, that a study by an independent business consulting firm found the terms of the agreement were not economically beneficial to the oil firm and recommended termination, or that SAIC demanded payment without a audit of its activities.

[lazarus]

1. Sigh

for those of you who haven't read the report, SAIC found that Diebold's machines were reliable if they had a paper trail added, as well as extra security.

This is a contract squabble between an American company and a foreign government. The American agency set up to protect American companies did so.

Some stuff you snipped over:

The officials were reacting to a July 12 determination by the Overseas Private Investment Corp., or OPIC, accepting SAIC's claim that the Venezuelan government had "expropriated" its share of a joint venture to provide information technology services to PDVSA. OPIC, which insures American firms' foreign investments, has reimbursed SAIC for $6 million on its claimed loss of $9.7 million.

Venezuela Ambassador BernardoAlvarez acknowledged that they were trying to deflect the image cast by the OPIC ruling of expropriation that Venezuela was not a safe place to do business.

But Larry Spinelli, an OPIC spokesman, said virtually everything the Venezuelan officials said was "totally ridiculous and false."

And, Spinelli continued, by holding a news conference and issuing official statements earlier, Venezuela and PDVSA were turning what had been a quiet inter-government process into a highly public affair that is hurting the country's image.

Because PDVSA has refused to negotiate a settlement of the SAIC dispute, he said, "it is highly unlikely that OPIC would be insuring any future investments in Venezuela."

That will have an impact, Spinelli said, "because OPIC is often looked at as a barometer" of the investment climate in a country.