An English court on Thursday said it would need to decide which of Venezuela’s dueling political factions to recognize before ruling on President Nicolas Maduro’s request for the Bank of England to hand over gold the country has in its vaults. Venezuela for decades stored gold that makes up part of its central bank reserves in the vaults of foreign financial institutions including the Bank of England, which provides gold custodian services to developing countries. The bank since 2018 has refused to transfer the funds to Maduro’s government, which Britain does not recognize.
