The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York overturned a lower court’s ruling in the prolonged trial over the expropriation of the state-owned oil company YPF. 

Argentina is, for the time being, exempt from paying a sum exceeding $16.1 billion. 

Furthermore, the court confirmed that the company was correctly exonerated of any liability during the nationalization process carried out in 2012 by the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner..

In 2023, Judge Loretta Preska ruled that the country had breached its contract and ordered it to pay US$16.1 billion.

The case dates back to 2012, when Argentina’s Congress, which then was dominated by the ruling Kirchnerist party, expropriated 51% of YPF shares from Spanish multinational Repsol, which was the majority shareholder at the time, giving the state majority control of the company.

In 2015, UK-based hedge fund Burford Capital sued Argentina in the District Court for the Southern District of New York after buying the right to litigate in the name of Petersen Energia Inversora and Petersen Energía, two companies belonging to the local Ezkenazi family, which owned part of the remaining shares.

President Javier Milei celebrated the ruling during an event at the Human Capital Ministry’s education center.

“We’ve beaten Burford in the United States,” he said. He thanked YPF CEO Horacio Marin, and the Treasury Prosecutor’s Office.

“We’ve managed to prevent Argentina from having to pay $18 billion,” he said, referring to the principal and the interests which the country was also ordered to pay by judge Preska.

The president also added: “Since I’m Milei, I’m going to say it Milei-style. We had to come in and clean up the messes made by that useless, idiotic, incompetent [Axel] Kicillof during the second administration of the corrupt and imprisoned [former president] Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.”

Kicillof, a Peronist leader and current Buenos Aires provincial governor, was in charge of the YPF takeover as deputy economy minister in 2012. Many now consider him Milei’s main political rival in the next presidential elections of 2027.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

© Buenos Aires Herald