A United States federal judge in Delaware has swept away an attempt to remove him and the court-appointed special master overseeing the sale of Petroleos de Venezuela Holdings, the parent company of Citgo, the Venezuelan state-owned oil company.

The US District Court also last week denied the motion of the Bermudian company, Gold Reserve Ltd, to disqualify the special master’s advisers, the law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP and Evercore Inc.

Gold Reserve is a creditor in a lawsuit involving the oil company and is the final recommended bidder for the purchase of PDV.

The bid was submitted through its subsidiary, Dalinar Energy, as part of a court-ordered auction designed to settle various debts.

The Bermudian-based company was historically involved in mining projects, but now primarily focuses on managing and monetising a collection of legal and arbitral claims, most notable of which are the Citgo proceedings and Siembra Minera arbitration proceedings. The company is listed as GRZ.V on the Toronto Venture Exchange and GRZ.BH on the Bermuda Stock Exchange.

The court also denied a similar motion filed by the Venezuela parties to disqualify the special master and his advisers and stated that it did not intend to rule on Amber Energy’s opposing bid before the end of the week.

Gold Reserve, in a statement filed with BSX, said it respectfully disagreed with the ruling and continued to believe that the sale process was plagued with significant conflicts of interest.

What Gold Reserve claims to be conflicts, the company said, include the $170 million in fees collected by the special master’s advisers from affiliates of hedge fund Elliott Investment Management and the 2020 bondholders involved in Elliott’s bid, as revealed through the company’s limited court-authorised discovery.

Its concerns were referenced in the court’s written opinion, from which the statement quoted: “One lawyer, Jeffrey Saferstein, has represented Elliott and also Apollo Global Management, a major investor in the Elliott Bid; prior to joining Weil, Saferstein worked at another law firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, with Michael Turkel, now of Elliott Management.

“In discovery, the movants obtained an e-mail, showing that on the day before topping bids were due in the sale process, a frustrated Turkel called Saferstein, seeking some level of assistance with a bid Elliott planned to make.”

“Saferstein thereafter wrote to his Weil colleagues working with the special master to intone: ‘I [would] hate for them [ie, Elliott] to not want to work with us.’”

Gold Reserve maintains its view that these and other conflicts undermine the fairness and integrity of the Citgo sale process and it intends to seek all appropriate appellate remedies.

Separately, in Gold Reserve’s pending action in the Delaware Court of Chancery against Rusoro Mining Ltd for breach of the parties’ consortium agreement, the court declined to expedite Gold Reserve’s motion for a preliminary injunction.

The Court of Chancery determined that it would await developments in the Citgo sale process before addressing that issue, according to the statement.