LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Venezuela’s foreign creditors try to lay claim to Citgo.

If Citgo is seized and sold to pay Venezuela’s debts, it could disrupt one of the most reliable sources of cash for a country already reeling from hyperinflation, food and medicine shortages, and a population exodus. U.S. sanctions aimed at pressuring President Nicolás Maduro, who has overseen the worst of the country’s implosion, have exacerbated the government’s pain, largely blocking it from the U.S. financial system.

The fight over Citgo is unfolding in courtrooms and boardrooms across North America and Europe – with a key decision expected by the end of the year.

Two Canadian mining firms are trying to acquire parts of Citgo as compensation for Venezuela’s expropriation of their assets more than a decade ago. A Russian oil company and holders of bonds issued by Venezuela’s state oil producer have staked a claim to Citgo shares. ConocoPhillips suggested it may also pursue the company.

In August, a federal judge in Delaware gave a bankrupt Canadian gold-mining company, Crystallex International, permission to seize shares of Citgo’s holding company, a decision that Venezuela’s lawyers lamented would “trigger a cascade of adverse events.”

It took a while to get going, but the cascade was triggered with Hugo Chavez’s election in 1999.