YPF: Trump ruled against Macri and forced to continue the case in the United States

Argentina knows what it is: this is what happened in the "lawsuit of the century" that the country lost against the hold-ups and vulture funds during the second administration of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. The cause of the re-nationalization of YPF would come back to the region of Loretta Prieska, the judge who inherited the Thomas Griesa case and who ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in the first instance. If that happens and is most likely, it will be obvious that the country has to pay an amount of about US $ 1,750 million on the original application, plus interest and costs. We will add to this other parallel causes (Eton Park) that are waiting to be resolved, with a final amount between 2,500 and 3,000 million US dollars.

The court had sought the Trump government's advice on January 7, and from Buenos Aires this was interpreted as a good omen. It has been speculated that the very good relations between the American president and Mauricio Macri would at least make the American administration postpone the decision until Buenos Aires, the financial climate stabilizes and the country can return to the markets to get into debt and liquidate the debts left by the cause. However, the surprise of yesterday was the speed with which the Attorney General (Attorney General of the United States) of Trump's government, Noel Francisco, delivered his opinion. It is four months and five days. Francisco could have waited for early November to give his opinion. Advancing the clock also starts the clock of the Court, which now has four weeks to make its decision known. The Macri government hoped that the resolution of the cause would pbad to 2020. That could not be. In the second half of the year, you will already know how much the country should pay. The curious destination is the management of Macri, which will terminate this original mandate: to negotiate with creditors on how the finances and the adjustments were treated.

The cause stems from the appearance of Burford Capital Fund, a firm specializing in the purchase of low-priced business with potential for international litigation. This fund enabled the Spanish courts to take part in the management of the bankruptcy of the companies Petersen Energía Inversora and Petersen Energía, two companies created by the Eskenazy family in this country; but that at the time of the reestablishment was already gone. The Petersen group had filed for bankruptcy in the courts of Madrid, after the renationalization of YPF in 2012 and for not being able to pay the installments of the transaction agreed for the entry of the Argentine group into the oil company. Petersen had contracted the debt by pledging to liquidate the proceeds of the dividends, but once the company was reconstituted, the government of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner prohibited the distribution of profits. As the Petersen Group did not have the money to continue the payments and it was impossible to incur foreign debts at reasonable rates, it presented Petersen Energía and Petersen Energía Inversora bankrupt in Madrid. That's when Burford is taking action. This brought the case back to Spanish justice in less than $ 30 million, claiming that Cristina de Kirchner's government had nationalized the oil company without making a public tender offer (OPA), such as It was included in the Privatization Act. defined in 1993 during the privatization promoted under the presidency of Carlos Menem. The country was engaged on the New York Stock Exchange, where the offer of the ADR of the oil company was launched, so that any subsequent purchase of part of the Argentine oil company would make an offer for all the shares of the market. During the renationalisation, the government of Cristina de Kirchner did not give importance to this point. The Congress approved the purchase of only 51% of the shares, after the then Minister of the Economy, Axel Kicillof, dismissed any further problem, saying "believe me if you want to buy shares to enter the society and spend 15% trampled the trap and had to buy 100% for a value equivalent to 19 000 million dollars.But the morons are those who think that the state must be stupid and buy everything in accordance with the law of the YPF itself, in respect of its status! " This sentence is now one of Burford's main arguments in the case that the New York Court of Appeal must define.