Insights
Client Alert
Venezuela Launches Next Stage of Expropriation
March 05, 2007
By Christopher F. Dugan and Joseph R. Profaizer
The government of Venezuela has launched the next stage of its program to expropriate foreign investment in major industries by the end of 2007. Following his landslide re-election on December 3, 2006, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has continued to implement his oft-repeated promise to install 21st-century socialism in Venezuela. Chávez has stated that, as part of this 21st-century socialism, Venezuela will expropriate the property and shares of certain foreign-owned companies while exempting property belonging to wealthy Venezuelans and Argentine nationals doing business in Venezuela.