David Osío is a Venezuelan businessman, serving as the CEO and president of Davos Financial Group, a financial consortium that prides itself on providing access to what it calls “the best investment options.” However, for his fellow countrymen, David Osío is often seen as the corrupt banker of Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). Among other reasons, he is remembered for his involvement in managing investments related to the Venezuelan oil company’s pension fund, which ended in fraud and significant losses for pensioners. This is not the only blemish on Osío’s business record; he has also faced a lawsuit from former partners, who accused him of failing to pay the dividends owed to them for the investments they made in Davos Financial Group.
Accused of Fraud by Former Partners
In 2011, a multimillion-dollar lawsuit was filed in Miami, United States, against David Osío, who is also the owner of Davos International Bank, a financial conglomerate that has maintained ties with Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA).
The lawsuit was brought by former partners and fellow Venezuelan bankers Rodrigo Fernández and Andrés Sotillo, who accused Osío of failing to pay them profits during their partnership. “In the lawsuit filed in Miami-Dade County court, Fernández and Sotillo allege that they partnered with Osío in the mid-90s and invested their money along with years of hard work into establishing Davos Financial Group. However, their efforts were undermined by alleged illegal actions on the part of their supposed Venezuelan partner.” Attorney Michael Díaz of Días, Reus & Targ LLP, who represented the defendants, stated that “Osío transferred the company’s assets to a trust in a tax haven and altered the status and value of the company’s assets without notifying the partners.” The banker denied the allegations and faced the accusations in court. Osío’s bank, Davos International Bank, was linked to a federal investigation for receiving over $5 million in alleged commissions paid to a senior PDVSA executive, Juan Montes, by the conglomerate of Venezuelan financier Francisco Illarramendi. Montes is accused of authorizing “the disbursement of several tens of millions of dollars from the PDVSA pension fund to be managed by a group of companies belonging to Francisco Illarramendi, a financier detained on accusations of a Ponzi-type fraud, resulting in multimillion-dollar losses.”