refused to pay. The president once again intervened to mediate between the parties, and met with oil company representatives at the National Palace on September 2. In this meeting, one of the El Aguila representatives took issue with the description of it being a foreign company, and stated that El Aguila was a Mexican company. In response, Jesus Silva Herzog (present in the meeting) responded with a financial newspaper from London that cited a report from the Royal Dutch Shell of 1928: "Our Mexican subsidiary, Oil Company El Aguila, has obtained good returns during the last fiscal cycle." It was also explained that El Aguila de Mexico would set the price of an oil barrel at 1.96 when sold to The Eagle Shipping company. This price was below the market value of US$3.19 per barrel. This way profits would be hidden to the Mexican treasury, and taxes were saved. But, on December 8, the companies hired other unemployed workers and had not responded to the arbitration board. On December 18, 1937, the board gave a verdict in favor of the union by means of a "laudo" (binding judgment in arbitration) which demanded that the companies fulfil the requirements of the petitions and pay 26 million pesos in lost salaries. The petroleum companies initiated a lawsuit on January 2, 1938 before the Mexican Supreme Court to protect their property from the labor union and arbitration board, which denied the request. Consequently, the foreign companies rebelled against the imposed contract, and the maximum Judicial Authority responded by rendering a decision on March 1, giving the companies until March 7 to pay the 26 million pesos penalty. In 1935, all companies in the business of extraction, processing, and exporting of oil in Mexico were foreign companies with foreign capital. These companies attempted to block the creation of labor unions and used legal and illegal tactics to do so. However, the creation of individual unions within each company was made possible, but work conditions differed from one another. On December 27, 1935, the Sindicato Único de Trabajadores Petroleros was created, despite the legal opposition in the states of Tamaulipas and Veracruz. On January 29, 1936, this union joined the Comité de Defensa Proletaria ("Committee of Proletarian Defense") which would become in February the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM). On July 20, the union celebrated its first convention, in which it was proposed a project