auntierooski,

Fortunately, no one in the collection line is currently ahead of Crystallex with the right to collect  the award. The 2020 Bondholders may also get to pursue CITGO for payment, but need to win the appeal that Venezuela filed in NY before they can even try. The 2020 bonds are collateralized by 51% of CITGO's shares, but the outstanding bonds are about half of the original issue.)

Conoco and the other parties are further behind in the line because they do not have the judgement from a U.S. court that they need to go after CITGO's assets. Like KRY before, they have to  prove that CITGO is an alter ego of PDVSA / Venezuela. The problem for them is that alter ego, by law, must be proven at the time the suit is filed and based on the current situation, not the past. Thus, Conoco and the others cannot piggiback on the DE District Court finding that CITGO was an alter ego a couple of years ago. Guido has not been sitting on his hands since that ruling. He has taken care of all the issues that led to the DE DC finding.

There is a paragraph in the Special Master's last filing at the DE DC in which he acknowledged that the auction can only be executed to pay KRY and no one else for the reasons above. There is also an article written by one of the best law firms in this area of U.S. law in which they analysed the KRY alter ego ruling and explained why that decision cannot be easily replicated. You can read it by following the link below.

https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:fc90edd0-8954-4ad5-92f6-d7d9ec53bdde