It's apparent you have a better grounding in the basics of law than do I. I was reminding posters of earlier discussions we had here on the subject. When I was at PDAC this spring, I spoke at length with Richard Marshall, and this is one of the things I reported about that conversation:

"Re: Recent fringe press, especially over the last few months. It would not be feasible, nor legally prudent, to directly address these press reports, nor even quotations from various government figures. He brought up translation of the word "recover" that figures so prominently in some press reports. Venezuelans speak a dialect of Spanish, and meaning of some phrases is not directly translatable. In this case, "recover" means something more along the line of "implement", or "proceed with". Moreover, the Venezuelan legal system is Napoleonic in structure. Nothing a person says has legal implications. What a person does has legal imlications. So, if it's not in writing, for example, you should just give it no weight whatsoever."

So, on the basis of what you have said, rather than referring to Napoleonic Code, I might better have referenced Venezuelan law?

Lar