Today 01:00
Burford Capital announced that he will request authorization from the court to begin seize Argentine assets in the coming weeks to fulfill a US$16 billion judgmentand pointed out that it is clear that the Argentina “has no intention” to pay.
In a letter sent Friday to the district judge Loretta Preska In New York, London-based Burford said it intended to ask him to set Oct. 16 as the date to begin enforcing the judgment and seizing assets. Earlier this month, Preska ordered Argentina to pay the compensation for the expropriation in 2012 of foreign investments in the oil company YPF SA
Sentence for the expropriation of YPF: representatives from different sectors repudiated the ruling
Burford, a litigation funder that acquired YPF shareholders’ claims in 2015, will receive the bulk of the compensation, about $6.2 billion. On Friday he stated that he needed to begin collection efforts immediately because Argentina was not going to cooperate. The firm cited a radio interview in which an Argentine official said the country “does not have to pay” for the “completely absurd” sentence.
“Argentina simply has no intention of paying the judgment, and it would be spurious for Argentina to suggest otherwise,” Burford attorney Randy Mastro said in the letter, arguing that Argentina should not be given any additional time.
A lawyer for the Argentine state did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The crisis in Argentina and the international rulings against
Argentina, which will appeal Preska’s ruling, has a long history of trying to avoid paying judgments from US courts. Elliott Managementof Paul Singerwaged a 15-year legal battle to collect money owed to bondholders following Argentina’s sovereign debt default in 2001. In 2012, Elliott briefly seized an Argentine training ship, the ARA Libertad, during a stopover in the port of Ghana, West Africa.
Elliott and other bondholders reached a deal with Argentina for $4.65 billion in 2016.
They accelerate the sale of YPF bonds before the presidential elections
Preska’s ruling came less than a month after Argentina devalued the peso, and the cash-strapped country will hardly be able to pay a $16 billion judgment. In a Sept. 11 interview with Bloomberg Television, Burford chief investment officer Jonathan Molot said the firm had a “reasonable appreciation of the challenges facing Argentina” and suggested they would take a different approach than Elliott.
“I’m not sure arresting ships is the best strategy.”Molot said.
ED
