On February 2, 2026, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) reissued General License 5U, “Authorizing Certain Transactions Related to the Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. 2020 8.5 Percent Bond on or After March 20, 2026,” to again delay the effective date of this authorization to March 20, 2026. This development is not related to recent developments in US sanctions targeting Venezuela, which we recently blogged about here.
GL 5U authorizes all transactions related to, the provision of financing for, and other dealings in the PdVSA 2020 8.5 Percent Bond that would be prohibited by subsection l(a)(iii) of Executive Order (“EO”) 13835 of May 21, 2018, as amended by EO 13857 of January 25, 2019, and incorporated into the Venezuela Sanctions Regulations. However, this authorization will not take effect until, at the earliest, March 20, 2026. This amendment of GL 5 is part of a long series of delayed effective dates that began in October 2019. OFAC also reissued Frequently Asked Questions (“FAQ”) 595, which was updated to include the new General License number and the delayed effective date for transactions authorized by the reissued GL.
The author acknowledges the assistance of Ryan Orange with the preparation of this blog post.
