Arbitrators in the Netherlands found in favor of the claimant in a dispute in which it claimed that it had not received dividends in a Venezuelan oil company in which it held shares alongside two Venezuelan state-owned shareholders, which did receive the dividends. In May 2018, while the arbitration was ongoing, Venezuela held a presidential election, in which incumbent President Maduro claimed victory.  In January 2019, the National Assembly of Venezuela declared the election results invalid and selected an Interim President, Juan Guaidó. On the same day, US President Trump officially recognized Guaidó as the “Interim President of Venezuela”. Maduro, however, remained in power. In June 2020, the Maduro-led government replaced the law firm that had represented it until then in the arbitration. The district court granted the claimant’s application to enforce the Dutch award, rejecting Venezuela’s argument that the tribunal had allowed the Maduro regime to change legal counsel during the arbitration, in contradiction with the US President’s official recognition of the Guaidó government and thus with US public policy. The district court held that the President’s recognition power was not a cognizable public policy under the New York Convention. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that enforcing the award did not undermine the President’s exclusive recognition power or express any view on the legitimacy of either Venezuelan government, and thus did not violate fundamental US public policy.