Four years after unlawfully dismissing its workforce, the service oil company is heading to the ICSID amidst a naval blockade and military invasion threats.
Written by: La Tabla/Data Journalism Platform 26 DEC 2025
Halliburton has decided to take Venezuela to an international arbitration tribunal. The oil giant claims before the ICSID multi-million dollar losses due to the country’s economic decline and the decisions made by the Venezuelan government.
However, this narrative leaves out a crucial point: the true reason for their forced departure was not a decision from Caracas but rather from Washington.
Halliburton’s withdrawal in 2020 was a direct result of extraterritorial sanctions imposed by the United States. The executive orders from the Trump administration, and specifically, OFAC’s General License 8, prohibited U.S. companies from engaging in transactions with PDVSA. This measure, combined with local conditions, strangled their operations and forced their exit.
The paradox is evident. While the company blames the Venezuelan state in an international court, it never legally questioned the measure from its own government that led to its withdrawal.
This strategy seems designed to position it as a preferred creditor in a potential scenario of political change or external control of the Venezuelan oil industry, a pattern that seems familiar.
Its history reinforces this interpretation. In December 2020, Halliburton fired around 400 Venezuelan workers through simple telegrams, offering minimal severance packages calculated with an unrealistic exchange rate. Workers had to embark on a long legal battle that reached the Supreme Court to receive fair compensation, a process in which the company used all its influence to resist.
This episode adds to a past marked by geopolitical exploitation. The figure of former CEO Dick Cheney encapsulates the symbiosis between the company, state power, and conflicts. As U.S. Vice President, Cheney was the architect of the 2003 invasion of Iraq—based on the false premise of weapons of mass destruction—through which Halliburton received multi-million dollar no-bid contracts for “reconstruction.” Moreover, the company and its executives have faced formal accusations of bribery in cases like Nigeria during the Cheney era.
Thus, the claim before the ICSID resembles less a legitimate legal demand and more a calculated move on the geopolitical chessboard. Halliburton seeks to capitalize on losses largely stemming from its nation’s foreign policy while concealing a history of labor rights disdain and flourishing amidst conflicts. Its case serves as a cynical reminder of how, in the oil geopolitics, corporations shift their risks to sovereign states, rewriting history to evade their own responsibility and paving the way for future profits.