Arevenca: Madasi Oil defends self, countersues

Madasi Oil’s Marcos da Silva writes with his respondes to the lawsuit I reported here. The response is in Spanish legalese but I think the short of it is “hey, you can’t sue us, we were screwed too!”

If you recall, the scam company Arevenca sold an $8 million cargo of asphalt to a Puerto Rico paving company with Madasi acting as the broker. Madasi says in its suit that it was supposed to get a 25% commission on the deal, or $1.75 million, which was then reduced to $1.55 million. The payment was made but the asphalt never arrived, and now Madasi is countersuing the Diaz family for allegedly having cost Madasi business worth, and I quote, “eight hundred billion dollars ($800,000,000.00).” Plus reputational harm to Madasi of $5 million, and additional harm to Lausell of $10 million.

As always we’re happy to offer a forum in which the subjects of commentary can offer their reply, so without additional commentary, here it is. Gotta say though that I won’t be posting anything else on here about this case unless Arevenca itself files a brief, until something big happens.

RECONVENCIO, DEMANDA DE COPARTE Y DEMANDA CONTRA TERCEROS

CONTESTACION A LA DEMANDA – MADASI

You may now return to your previously scheduled Chávez-Capriles nail-biting session.

Puerto Rico asphalt company sues Arevenca, Madasi, Miguel Lausell for $13.6 million

Arevenca, the fake oil company long documented in these pages for its deceptive web site and involvement in a failed airline in Aruba, is being sued along with several people who allegedly acted as salesmen for a scam in Puerto Rico. The Betteroads Asphalt Corp. alleges in a suit filed Sept. 4 in the US territory that it bought a cargo of asphalt from Arevenca following a sales pitch by prominent Puerto Rico businessman Miguel Lausell on behalf of local Arevenca representative Madasi Oil Co. The suit accuses Arevenca, Madasi and individuals including Lausell of fraud and breach of contract and demands a refund of $7.8 million that Betteroads spent on asphalt and another $5.8 million in other damages.

Betteroads, according to the complaint and a series of e-mails filed with the court, thought that the $7.8 million it sent to the Swiss bank account of Arevenca would entitle it to a tanker of asphalt, and was disappointed to find that tanker-loads of excuses, lies and delays were wholly inadequate for the task of resurfacing highways and parking lots even in the magical realm of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. After months spent arguing with various representatives of Arevenca, including company president Francisco Javier González Álvarez, Lausell, and others, Betteroads has turned to the court systems of the United States, which seems to be the end-point of many conflicts involving shady Caribbean and Venezuelan operators.

Keeping track of website updates (Arevenca/Madasi, Derwick, Ovarb)

One fun thing I like to do is watch when web pages are changed or removed. As I look into possibly untoward behaviour in the oil industry, I keep coming across situations where information disappears from the Internet. I give you three recent examples. Each one is minor, and I don’t want to speculate on people’s motives. I have no problem with privacy. I just don’t like memory holes, where information of public value was public and then disappears. So I am preserving and pointing out a few tidbits.

Arevenca coincidences

Arevenca says it is investing just shy of US$8 million in Fly Aruba, its new airline, which was started with great fanfare in September 2011.

This site got an anonymous comment in November 2011. I didn’t approve it for publication because it was a bit too specific about wrongdoing by individuals, and I don’t like this site being used for anonymous defamation. The commenter said Arevenca got US$8 million three months earlier (roughly August) from a company in Puerto Rico for a shipment of an oil product that never arrived.

PS: Just before Arevenca burst back into sight with these latest Aruba issues, some guy wrote to PetroleumWorld to comment on my story from last year about Arevenca. His comment defending Skanga, a company suing Arevenca — let’s just say that its level of specificity speaks more loudly than any of its particular words or phrases.