Law Firms Scramble to Guide Clients About Venezuela Tumult (1)

Law firms have been moving fast to answer clients’ Venezuela questions after the US removal of President Nicolás Maduro.

Baker Botts, Latham & Watkins and Clifford Chance are firms that have grouped together dozens of attorneys and staff members to quickly respond to client queries. Ted Posner, who heads the national security and trade risk mitigation practices for Baker Botts, is among 16 partners leading a task force at his firm.

“We’re responding to events in real time” and “trying to do the best we can to make sense of it,” Posner said in an interview. “At least in the early days, what that means is taking the news as it shows up in our inboxes and translating it for our clients.”

The firms are funneling their resources as clients have blitzed them with queries after Maduro’s removal on Jan. 3. The questions they are helping clients with include the legality of actions, trade, and the prospect of energy investments.

“Given that it hasn’t even been a week, it feels a bit premature to be able to provide meaningful advice to clients as to what’s going to happen,” said Justin T. Stolte, global chair of the energy and infrastructure group for Latham. “We are certainly going through the range of possibilities and how things could play out.”

David Sweeney, the global co-head of the energy and resources sector for Clifford Chance, said in email that “the attitude from our clients is one of ‘wait and see’ or ‘watch events with interest.’”

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher said in a Jan. 4 statement that a team of sanctions, arbitration, litigation, and transactional attorneys were “closely monitoring the developing situation in Venezuela.” The firm said it “continues to advise a number of clients in ongoing litigation against the Republic as well as on sanctions-related issues involving doing business in and with Venezuela.”

Expertise Questions

In the first 24 hours after the Maduro’s removal, Baker Botts clients began calling Posner and his colleagues to ask whether it was legal for the US to arrest and prosecute the leader in Manhattan.

The following 48-hours brought questions concerning Trump’s announcement that the US would “run Venezuela” as Maduro was flown to New York, Posner said. Next came questions about getting American oil companies back into Venezuela and the status of sanctions.

After reading news about Maduro’s arrest on Jan. 3, Posner, a former assistant general counsel at the Treasury Department who joined Baker Botts in 2025, recalled asking his first question: “What are the relevant areas of expertise, and who within the firm has that expertise?”

That afternoon, he received an email from leadership at the firm, saying that there’s likely sanctions and trade dimensions to the unfolding situation—his areas of expertise—and asking him who else from the firm should be part of the conversation.

“You’re sort of building the plane while you’re in flight,” Posner said, adding that the internal email chain included attorneys from Houston, Washington DC, London, and the Middle East.

By Jan. 5, Baker Botts had more than doubled the number of employees in the email chain.

“Events are moving rapidly,” Posner said he told clients. “They are, in some sense, unpredictable. The best thing you could do is follow what’s going on very closely, begin to develop contingency plans, and sort of think through different scenarios the same way you would in the policy space.”

Baker Botts released a guide detailing the current sanctions and trade compliance landscape, investment disputes and arbitration claims, and developments affecting Venezuelan and its state-run oil company PDVSA debt resolution. The firm declined to name specific clients, though a spokesperson said Baker Botts has been “representing companies on Venezuelan matters for decades.”

‘Significant Interest’

Bracewell LLP has seen “significant interest” from clients for “intelligence regarding implications for oil and gas markets,” Scott Segal, co-chair of the firm’s Policy Resolution Group in Washington DC, said in email.

Venezuela is a “tantalizing prospect” for oil companies seeking to expand their asset base since it possesses about 303 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves, about 20% of global oil resources, Segal said. However, the country’s oil sector has undergone a “precipitous decline” in oil production due to underinvestment, mismanagement, corruption, and infrastructure deterioration, he said.

“One specific barrier to investment and contracting is the real ambiguity about governance in Venezuela after regime change,” Segal said he told clients. “Addressing that ambiguity requires an energy law firm to be well connected with policy makers and experienced in past changes in government.”

Winston & Strawn has also set up a Venezuelan task force to help them “better field and address calls from clients assessing both opportunity and risk in Venezuela,” Cari Stinebower, the firm’s chair of international trade practice, said in email.

“Conversations center on navigating US sanctions, corruption exposure, and structuring deals to mitigate litigation and regulatory hurdles,” Stinebower said. “While interest is real, most companies remain cautious until there’s clarity on licensing and enforcement.”

Todd Staples, president of the Texas Oil and Gas Association, said the giant oil companies in the world’s energy capital of Houston “are exploring the possibilities that could unfurl.”

“There is significant potential,” Staples said. However, Venezuela has had “two decades of under investment of capital and have experienced an operational decline. So, there’s not going to be a quick turnaround.”