The national government presented its arguments this Thursday on the
expropriation of YPF
and insists, as a State, on
removing jurisdiction from the United States in the Burford case
, where there is already a
ruling against it that forces it to pay 16,000 million dollars
to the plaintiffs.
The two briefs were presented before the
Court of Appeals of the Second Circuit of New York
, regarding the contrary rulings issued by Judge
Loretta Preska
in the cases initiated by
Petersen and Eton Park
on the expropriation of YPF.
In the appeal, led by the
Treasury Attorney General's Office
, Argentina requests that the sentences be reversed in their entirety because they were based on errors in Argentine law and under the premise that
a United States court should have refrained from exercising jurisdiction. on cases founded entirely on Argentine law
.
More simply: the North American country cannot have interference in ruling on Argentine laws, due to events that occurred in Argentine territory with Argentine companies.
“Both the conclusions of the district court regarding the alleged contractual responsibility of Argentina, as well as those related to the calculation of damages, are questioned,” explained sources from the Attorney General's Office, in which the highest authority is Rodolfo Barra.
The lawyer working on international trials against the national State is
Andrés de la Cruz
, Deputy Attorney General of the Treasury and former partner of the law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton.
In the grounds of the appeal, the regional director of Latam Advisors,
Sebastián Maril
, noted that the State stated: “Because the court erroneously applied Argentine public and private legislation in supporting the plaintiffs' claims for 'breach of contract' , this court should reverse the decision.
The court granted judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, interpreting complex questions of Argentine law and, for the most part, establishing new Argentine jurisprudence in favor of the plaintiffs in almost all respects.
“ This lawsuit should never have come to a New York court
to begin with .
The defendant is the Argentine Republic, the events in question occurred exclusively within Argentina, and everyone agrees that the claims must be analyzed solely through the prism of Argentine law.
Argentina's civil legal system does not recognize a lawsuit for breach of contract and damages by one shareholder against another for violation of corporate statutes,” the country explained, through its legal representation.
Then, the State goes further.
“In addition to its errors on the merits, the district court grossly inflated plaintiffs' damages, when it should have converted the damages from Argentine pesos to U.S. dollars using the exchange rate in effect on the date of its ruling (September 15, 2023)”, he questions.
And he adds: “If a foreign court allowed plaintiffs to sue the United States government under US law for conduct that occurred in the United States, created a cause not previously recognized by US courts, and then ruled too much “At $2 trillion (the equivalent proportion of US federal spending last year), the US government, the US legal system and the international community would be
rightly surprised
.”
They point, without saying so, to the
“principle of non-interference” in internal affairs
.
On this occasion, the arguments of Javier Milei's team are similar to those previously held by Kirchner officials, such as former attorney
Carlos Zannini
, and which have had no results so far.
However, Maril explained when asked by
Clarín
that the State cannot present new arguments in an appeal.
The expropriation of YPF shares in 2012, decided by former president
Cristina Kirchner
and the former Minister of Economy and current governor of Buenos Aires,
Axel Kicillof
, already cost the national State about
US$5,000 million
plus interest that was paid to
Repsol
.
The Burford Capital law firm bought the litigation rights after the bankruptcy of the Petersen companies, which belonged to the
Eskenazi
family , “experts in regulated markets” who accessed the company in 2008 and financed the purchase by withdrawing the oil company's profits.
The enormous outflow of dollars to pay in Spain a loan to the banks that supported that operation and the lack of investments in energy that led to a million-dollar trade deficit were two of the main reasons why the
dollar stocks
were established at the end of 2011.