Gold Reserve Ltd. filed a lawsuit Thursday in Delaware Chancery Court accusing Rusoro Mining Ltd. of exploiting confidential bidding alliance information to sabotage Gold Reserve’s $7.382 billion offer for shares in PDV Holding Inc., the Delaware parent of Citgo Petroleum.
The complaint alleges Rusoro secretly shopped consortium terms to rival Elliott Investment Management and misled the court-appointed Special Master overseeing the sale, using insider access to undermine Gold Reserve’s bid while boosting Elliott’s final offer.
“Rusoro’s misrepresentation to the Special Master about ‘consent rights’ was knowingly and intentionally false and made in bad faith to improve the position of Elliott and Rusoro at Gold Reserve’s expense,” the complaint states.
Calculated Betrayal Alleged in Multi-Billion-Dollar Auction
Gold Reserve calls Rusoro’s actions a deliberate bad-faith maneuver, aiming to dethrone it as the Special Master’s recommended bidder. The lawsuit seeks to block Rusoro from participating in Elliott’s competing consortium, citing contractual, tort, and trade secret violations.
The Citgo sale arises from years of U.S. creditor efforts to recover multi-billion-dollar awards against Venezuela and state-owned PDVSA. In 2021, a Delaware federal court appointed a Special Master to oversee the forced sale of PDV Holding shares.
After a March 2025 stalking-horse round and a June 2025 topping period, Gold Reserve’s bid was initially selected. But Elliott later submitted a rival proposal, ultimately chosen by the court.
