02/28/2020 - 13:24
- Clarín.com
- Politics
Far from expectations for the government's negotiation with the Monetary Fund and the bondholders for the restructuring of sovereign debt, another conflict that could cost the country millions continues to move forward in New York courts: the YPF expropriation trial, in 2012. To defend the interests of Argentina against the claim of the Burford fund, the Attorney General of the Treasury, Carlos Zannini, added to another study of US lawyers, with a contract of 1.6 million dollars closed without tender.
As El Cronista reported, Zannini would have hired the Sullivan & Cromwell LLP studio three weeks ago, which will pay 96.2 million pesos - 1.6 million dollars - for a period of ten months.
The funny thing is that in the litigation that Burford takes against Argentina in the court of Judge Loretta Preska, the country is already sponsored by the Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom law firm, which will continue working on the process.
Judge Preska, who commands the court that led the late judge Thomas Griesa for decades, must decide whether Burford's claim and other investment funds will continue to be processed in the United States or will be transferred to the Argentine courts, as the government intends.
Burford, claims a payment that would average the 3,000 million dollars for the lack of compensation to the companies Petersen Energía and Petersen Investor when the Argentine State expropriated its shares in YPF, which represented 25% of the oil company. The two companies ended up going bankrupt, and the Spanish courts - where they had their legal headquarters - sold the rights of those firms to make a legal claim for the expropriation of those actions in 2012. Burford bought most of those rights and initiated a claim in NY.
On the contrary, Argentina's lawyers understand that the expropriation of YPF was a sovereign act that occurred in the country, so it must be processed in local courts. For that, they submitted a request (their legal name is "forum non conveniens"), for which they have to dump arguments.
Sullivan & Cromwell's lawyers began working on February 5 in this case. They come from reaping a success in the representation of Argentine interests against the claim of the Aurelius fund, which complained to the country about the alleged alteration of public statistics that, by reducing the growth rate of the economy allowed not to pay a coupon linked to GDP that the holders of the debt issued by the government of Nestor Kirchner and his minister Roberto Lavagna had.
Zannini's position in the YPF conflict is unique: he was the Legal and Technical Secretary of the presidency when the expropriation of the oil company was completed until 2012 under the control of the Spanish Repsol. And now, as attorney, he is the head of the State's lawyers who must defend the country against the possible economic damages caused by that decision.