YPF-Burford: Argentina has managed to extend its definition until 2020

Yesterday's decision is based on the right of Argentina and the YPF to present new evidence deserving of further investigation in a case that seemed already defined in favor of the plaintiffs. after the US Supreme Court set against the country the claim to move the case to Argentina. Last June, this court ordered Preska to resolve the case, depriving the country of the possibility of handling the case in local jurisdictions. However, before a new presentation on July 11, during the first direct public hearing between defense lawyers and plaintiffs, the judge accepted a new request from Argentina for the purpose of attending a other request. On that day, Preska decided to set up a schedule of meetings for submission of writings by the parties in order to further internalize Argentina's position in order to justify the move. And also know why Burford refuses. Burford's lawyers protested yesterday against the judge's decision recalling the court's ruling, saying that in general, cases that begin usually do not require more than four years of resolution. In this case, for Argentina's claims and counterclaims, the delay will be extended, at least, by at least six years.

Of Buenos Aires, and although it is acknowledged that the goal of the maximum is far from being reached, the fact that the end of the trial has not been settled and that a space of debate within the court that Thomas Griesa was opened once opened were opened, It is interpreted that the cause took a favorable turn towards the local interests. For the government, the extension will determine that the final decision will take several more weeks and that the trial chapter YPF in New York, it can also be used in the election campaign, since the two main players in the reestablishment operation of the YPF are today the main candidates of the opposition : the former president Cristina de Kirchner and the former Minister of Economy, Axel Kicillof. These, in addition to the former Minister of Planning, Julio De Vido. Within the executive, it was considered that Skkaden's strategy, developed with representatives of the ruling party who are in charge of the case, based on "court mud", had flourished. Official sources even speak of the success of the "burlandisation" of the (recommended Buenos Aires) international strategy, objective and technical that would have surprised Burford's lawyers, accustomed to coping with all sorts of strategies, but obviously not these mechanisms of save time and complicate arguments.

The Argentinean approach was presented by Maura Grinalds, lawyer of the study at Skadden, which raised Argentina's position to move the case to Buenos Aires, given the need to evaluate how 25% of YPF was sold in 2008. At the beginning of the hearing, the lawyer presented the reasons for the request, based on the fact that the operation could have included acts of corruption, which must be judged by Argentine law. And when many local witnesses are involved, the local justice is the one that should receive their statement. Argentina ensures that there are outstanding cases in the country that consider the case of the 2008 operation, and that an advance of these causes could be helpful and would clarify the case evaluated by Preska. In fact, the only case that deals with this issue is in the hands of Judge Ariel Lijo and is based on a complaint filed by MP Elisa Carrió in 2008, and she has so far no major movement, although she has already served more than 10 years since her appointment. presentation

The case is based on Burford's lawsuit, to which he joined And we, because of the way the oil company was nationalized without making a public tender offer (OPA), as it appeared in the 1993 statute during the privatization promoted by President Carlos Menem. On the New York Stock Exchange, the country had committed that any subsequent acquisition of part of the oil company would result in an offer for the full market share of the same value. Burford negotiated in 2013 with the Spanish courts the takeover of the bankruptcy of the companies Petersen Energía and Petersen Energía Inversora, two companies that originally represented the shares of the Petersen group within the oil company; but that already at the beginning of this year they had filed for bankruptcy with the courts of Madrid. Burford, a specialist in the detection of worldwide court cases potentially subject to international litigation, has acquired trial rights for approximately $ 13 million, under a contract signed by the trustee in bankruptcy . In the presentation of Burford's writings, he always made it clear that the purchase of the case was coming back to Spanish justice and that in 2013 the Petersen group had nothing to do with it anymore. the oil company. This point would also be one of the complainant's arguments to reject Argentina's allegation of moving the case to Buenos Aires in order to determine whether there had been any acts. illegal when the Petersen Group entered the oil company. Burford is not a specialist in financial investments, but focuses on the alternative of finding mega judgments from companies in bankruptcy or bankruptcy with lawsuits, but who no longer have the right to to sue for years.

In the case of Petersen, after the re-nationalization of 51% of YPF in May 2015, he had not been able to support the purchase of the 25% he had accepted at the time of Nestor Kirchner. The Argentine group appeared in competition in Spain in 2012, unable to continue making the payments incurred to enter the oil company, prohibiting the government of Cristina de Kirchner the payment of dividends, already with YPF nationalized. Thus Petersen had agreed with the Argentine government to liquidate its initial debt with Repsol. The 2012 government change of plan therefore determined his bankruptcy and subsequent bankruptcy. A few months later, Burford appears and claims about $ 3 billion.