The CITGO auction data should be made public, according to the parties from Venezuela—PDV Holding Inc. (PDVH) and CITGO Petroleum Corporation—which argue that information should only be kept sealed when there is a compelling justification for doing so.
The request to Judge Leonard Stark was made through a sealed Memorandum of Law, following the recommendations of the expert witness who supports keeping the information confidential. Accompanying this was the expert report by José Alberro, which contains sensitive financial and commercial information from CITGO and/or PDVH.
Despite instructions from Robert B. Pincus, PDVH and CITGO express a preference for the public disclosure of much of this information during the sale hearing, in line with the principle of public access to judicial proceedings.
The Memorandum from PDVH and CITGO
On July 24, 2025, in the case of Crystallex International Corp. v. the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Alexandra Cumings, representing PDV Holding Inc. (PDVH) and CITGO Petroleum Corporation, explained the redactions in the Memorandum of Law supporting the Objections to the Final Recommendation of Expert Witness Robert B. Pincus.
They note that the sealing was imposed at Pincus’s request and not by the preference of PDVH or CITGO, which, conversely, supports the public release of information regarding the identity of bidders, bid amounts, and related correspondence from the CITGO auction for transparency in the sales process.
They emphasize to Judge Stark that most redactions in the Memorandum and its attachments, including fully withheld exhibits, were made “at the request of the Special Expert and their legal advisor—not by any of the Venezuelan Parties.”
However, CITGO and PDVH consulted with the expert witness prior to submission, following the Court’s July 14 order, and complied with their guidelines regarding the information that should be withheld from public presentation.
Pincus Requests to Conceal CITGO Auction Data
In their letter, PDVH and CITGO inform the Delaware Court that the redacted information is intended to conceal “bidder identities, bid amounts, and correspondence about the sales process produced in discovery or exchanged otherwise with the Sale Process Parties that have not been publicly presented.”
They cite that the expert report by José Alberro covers “highly confidential financial or commercial information that is competitively sensitive for CITGO and/or PDVH.”
They warn that CITGO and PDVH “take no position on whether such categories of redacted information should remain confidential at this time.”
However, they assume and believe that “it would be appropriate for such information to be public during the Sale Hearing in the absence of a compelling justification, given the presumption of access to such proceedings and the extent to which maintaining information about the sales process under seal would interfere with the ability to hold a public hearing.”
Therefore, while they complied with the guidelines set by expert witness Robert B. Pincus, PDVH and CITGO advocate for public transparency regarding much of this information at the Sales Hearing.
Check out Sin Filtros: “The U.S. Anti-Terrorism Campaign Against the Venezuelan Regime and the Cártel de los Soles”: