-The National Assembly (AN in Spanish) approved the final reports on the popular consultation of 16 July and the candidates for magistrates of the Supreme Court (TSJ in Spanish). The latter is part of the process of one of the main items of the current agenda of “zero hour” established by the opposition party Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD in Spanish), as the legislators expect to exercise their constitutional ability to name – on Friday 21 July – new magistrates and thus actively repudiate the current Supreme Court and i

- Following the results of the public consultation election on Sunday, the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD in Spanish) called for a 24-hour national strike on Thursday in protest against the National Constituent Assembly (ANC in Spanish) proposed by the administration of Nicolas Maduro. Furthermore, Freddy Guevara, deputy President of the Congress, said they expect to name the new magistrates of the Supreme Court on Friday. We can anticipate this move will not be acknowledge by both the government and the Supreme Court, but will u

- S&P Global Ratings, following its Tuesday action of downgrading Venezuela’s rating, yesterday decided also to downgrade the corporate credit of Corporacion Electrica Nacional, better known as CORPOELEC (former ELECAR). The action resulted in a downgrade from “CCC” to “CCC -“while also maintaining the negative outlook. In detail, the rating agency argued that they are taking this action against the corporate as a result of the sovereign’s downgrade, as it reflects that this is a “government-related entity” (GRE

- A US appeals court blocked Exxon Mobil Corp from enforcing a USD1.6bn award against Venezuela for an asset seizure back in 2007. The court ruled that the judge made a mistake in excusing Exxon from complying with procedural requirements to enforce the October 2014 ruling. In this way, the court supported Venezuela’s point that Exxon should have tried to enforce the award under the federal Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), instead of streamlined procedures. All-in, Exxon's petition was dismissed without prejudice, meaning