The article falsely says:

In 2017, corporations that had faced expropriations such as Crystallex and ConocoPhillipsCOP +5.6% were already making the case that Citgo should pay on behalf of Caracas. They argued at the time that Citgo was being used by presidents Chávez and Maduro for their “foreign policy objectives” and thus it was an “alter ego” of the Venezuelan government. However, they failed to make the case.

This is proven false by your follow up article that states:

In fact, the same Delaware court issued a ruling in October 2018 in favor of Crystallex in a very similar case, determining that Venezuela and PDVSA were not separate entities. At that time, the Interim Government did not exist.