The largest award enforcement operation in ISDS history entered a contested endgame in 2026. On November 25, 2025, a US federal judge in Delaware approved the USD 5.9 billion bid by Amber Energy, an affiliate of Elliott Investment Management, for PDV Holding, the parent of Citgo Petroleum, in the court-organized auction to satisfy arbitral and judgment creditors of Venezuela; the bid was selected over a nominally larger rival offer backed by judgment creditor Gold Reserve for its greater certainty of closing. Under the court’s priority waterfall, Crystallex (about USD 1.0 billion), Tidewater (about USD 80 million), ConocoPhillips (about USD 1.3 billion), and O-I Glass (about USD 700 million) stand first in line, converting expropriation awards dating to the Chavez era into proceeds from the seventh-largest US refiner. In mid-January 2026, PDVSA and the Venezuelan government appealed to the Third Circuit, and clearance from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control remained outstanding as of April 2026 amid rapidly shifting US-Venezuela relations. Nearly a decade after Crystallex first pierced the corporate veil, the saga illustrates both the ultimate enforceability of awards against sovereign commercial assets and the extraordinary time, cost, and geopolitical contingency involved.