The federal judge Loretta Presska, head of the Court of the Southern District of New Yorkhe ordered the Argentine State to deliver its class D actions of YPF – self -experience to 51% of the company – as part of the historic sentence for the expropriation of 2012. The ruling establishes:
“For the reasons stated above, the demanding motion is accepted. The Republic must (i) transfer its YPF class D actions to a global custody account in BNYM in New York within 14 days after the date of this order; and (ii) instruct Bnym to initiate the transfer of the interest interests of the Republic in their YPF class D actions to the plaintiffs or their designated within a business day from the date on which the actions are deposited in the account ”.
Presska, a judge of vast trajectory in financial and corporate causes, also considered that an additional oral argument was not necessary and denied the request of the Argentine Government: “It is considered that an additional oral argument is considered to be necessary to the documents presented by the parties, and the request for oral argument of the Republic is denied,” says the text that the regional director of Latam Advisors, Sebastian Maril, says in the first instance.
The magistrate concluded ordering the administrative closure of open judicial files: “The Secretary of the Court is respectfully ordered to close the DKT files. No. 555 in 15 Civ. 02739 and DKT. No. 481 in 16 Civ. 08569”.
The background: from Kicillof’s epic to vulture funds
The ruling responds to the long legal battle that began when, during the second term of Cristina Kirchner, its Minister of Economy Axel Kicillof promoted the expropriation of YPF. At that time, Kirchnerism presented nationalization as an act of energy sovereignty, after acquiring 51% of the oil company that was in the hands of Repsol and the Petersen group of the Eskenazi family.
However, behind the operation a questioned financing scheme was hidden: the Eskenazi had entered YPF without putting their own weight. They bought their participation through an autophagous mechanism with future dividends, approved by Repsol and politically backed by Kirchnerism. When the profitability fell and the company was expropriated, Petersen entered default.
There began the litigation. The litigation rights of the Petersen group were acquired by the Burford Capital and Eton Park funds for a fraction of their eventual value, betting on a millionaire compensation in international courts. The play was perfect: in September 2023, Presska condemned Argentina to pay USD 16,100 million for not having made the public acquisition offer (OPA) to minority shareholders, as indicated by the company’s statute.
A historical irony
With this new ruling, the beneficiary funds – and potentially the Eskenazi family itself, through their participation in the litigation rights sold – could take control of YPF, the same company they acquired at the time without direct investment and with the promise of paying with future profits.
The Argentine government had requested an oral hearing to stop the transfer of shares, but Judge PRell rejected the order arguing that the documents presented were enough to decide.
Political and economic impact
This episode exposes the political, economic and legal cost of the decision taken in 2012. Kicillof, today Buenos Aires governor, defended nationalization as an epic battle against neoliberalism. More than a decade later, Argentina faces embargoes and the possible loss of control of its main oil company, while international litigation funds celebrate a ruling that, in fact, could make them the new YPF reference shareholders.
The history of “energy sovereignty” ends, paradoxically, in a New York court that orders the property of the national oil company to the global financial capital.
