President Javier Mile
i accepted this Wednesday the excuse of the Attorney General of the Treasury Rodolfo Barra to intervene
in the trial that the Buford fund is following Argentina in New York for the controversial renationalization of YPF carried out by former president Cristina Kirchner and the former minister of Economy Axel Kicillof. At the trial, Judge Loretta Preska
sentenced Argentina to pay 16 billion dollars to the Burford fund.
After a consultation with the Anti-Corruption Office on conflict of interest, President Milei accepted Barra's step aside from the most important trial that Argentina is suffering abroad.
The reason, explains presidential decree 282 published today in the Official Gazette, was for
“having issued a technical opinion from an expert in Argentine Administrative Law,
on October 11, 2021, at the request of the Bankruptcy Administrator designated in the bankruptcy processes of the companies. Petersen Energía Inversora SAC and Petersen Energía SAU, filed before the Commercial Court No. 3 of Madrid.”
In 2012, Cristina Kirchner celebrated the expropriation of 51 percent of the shares of the oil company YPF in the Casa Rosada.
It happens that when Cristina had YPF renationalized in 2010,
she paid 8 billion dollars to the Spanish group Repsol
for its shares but did not give anything to the Argentine group Petersen, which led the companies - which had 25 percent of the shares - to the oil company -
to bankruptcy
in Spain. Her predecessor and husband Néstor Kirchner had negotiated in 2007 with Repsol the entry of the Petersen group, of the Eskenazi family, which already owned the privatized Santa Cruz bank, into YPF.
In that trial in Spain, where Barra's opinion was used as an expert in administrative law,
the Burford group bought the right to litigate those Spanish companies of the Petersen group and took the trial to New York,
where Argentina was convicted last year to pay that multi-million dollar figure, even greater than the value of YPF after the Kirchner administrations.
In a decree 283, President Javier Milei also stated that “
the functions of the Deputy Treasury Attorney will be to replace the Treasury Attorney
in case of absence, excuse, recusal, impediment or vacancy.”
But Andrés de La Cruz, Deputy Treasury Attorney, was also a lawyer for the Eskenazi family.
Clarín
asked the Attorney General's Office about this situation and at the time of writing this note he had not yet responded. The Treasury Attorney is the head of the State's attorneys.
This is Barra's
second excuse
in a key trial. The first was because former president Cristina Kirchner
used another ruling of hers last month to try to annul the Roads case
, where she was sentenced to six years in prison for acts of corruption.
In that case of Cristina, the head of the Anti-Corruption Office (OA), Alejandro Melik, had warned of a possible conflict of interest, as reported by Elisa Carrió's ARI-CC. And he recommended that Barra “
refrain
from intervening in issues related” to the former vice president.
Milei's decree, signed by the Chief of Staff Nicolás Posse and the Minister of Justice, Mariano Cúneo Libarona, indicates that
Barra himself
initiated these administrative actions to be excused from “taking intervention in the case” Petersen Energía Inversora SAU and Petersen Energía SAU vs. “Argentine Republic and YPF SA”
The trial is being processed before the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, in which the Treasury Attorney General represents Argentina.
“The request for excuse was presented by the aforementioned official, based on the principles of
prudence and independence of judgment
that result from articles 9 and 23, respectively, of the Code of Ethics of the Public Service in the understanding that, before A possible action on their part in said process could affect their independence of judgment or their public image,” he adds.
This situation occurs “due to having issued a technical opinion from an expert in Argentine Administrative Law, on October 11, 2021, at the request of the Bankruptcy Administrator appointed in the bankruptcy processes of the companies Petersen Energía Inversora SAC and Petersen Energía SAU, located before the Commercial Court No. 3 of Madrid,” reiterates the presidential decree.
Then the decree indicates that "in the terms of article 6 of the National Law of Administrative Procedures No. 19,549 and its amendments, and in order to guarantee the greatest transparency and impartiality in each of the acts of government, it is
appropriate
to make room to the request made by the Attorney General of the Treasury of the Nation for the reasons stated as the basis for his excuse.”
The publication of the decree had an immediate political impact. The president of the Carrió Civic Coalition bloc, Juan López, opined that “Barra recognized his conflict of interest in the cause of nationalization of YPF and
must resign
.”
“The President accepts his excuse, a formal departure that does not reach or provide sufficient guarantees. If the Attorney General who must defend the interests of the Argentine State cannot intervene in the main judicial case against our country,
then it makes no sense for him to continue in his position
,” he added.
López maintained that “Barra must resign immediately and leave his role to someone who can fully exercise it with integrity, suitability and without conflicts of interest for his “services provided” to Cristina F. de Kirchner and other political and criminal officials responsible for the nationalization, emptying and YPF scam.”
For his part, the president of Carrió's party, Maximiliano Ferraro, went further than López: “Barra's excuse in the trials against YPF
is a danger if it is not also made by the deputy attorney general who was the Eskenazi family's lawyer
.” “We requested it in December and we will request it again now. The Milei government cannot validate the million-dollar fraud of the Kirchners, Kicillofs and the Eskenazis,” Ferraro added.
In 2012, the then vice president Amado Boudou celebrated the expropriation of 51 percent of Repsol's shares.
Barra, who entered the government with the support of businessman Eduardo Eurnekian, is a key member of the Government in the judicial fight for the Court to declare whether Milei's mega DNU is constitutional or not.