A 2025 insurance dispute over a single cargo of Venezuelan crude has become an unexpected window into how U.S. courts, insurers, and capital markets have grappled with Venezuela’s contested sovereignty since 2019, years before recent U.S. actions and renewed debate over Nicolás Maduro’s status as Venezuela’s head of state.
The drama that unfolded in a Washington, D.C., courtroom last year now reads as a case study in how private risk and capital markets have been forced to navigate a shifting political order under an emboldened Trump Administration, and how questions of regime legitimacy, sanctions, and violence ultimately determine who bears the financial cost when sovereign risk is upended.
