Burford brought the claim against YPF to the ICSID, and the Milei government is already preparing the Argentine defense

The British litigation funding firm Burford Capital filed arbitration with the ICSID against the Argentine State for the Kirchnerist expropriation of YPF in 2012, representing Spanish companies from the Petersen Group, which were minority shareholders of the oil company at the time of nationalization.

The new filing opens a different phase of the dispute that unfolded in the courts of New York, for which the Government of Javier Milei, through the National Treasury Attorney's Office, has already begun to prepare the defense strategy for the Argentine Republic.

According to the agency, the possibility that the claimants would resort to international arbitration had already been anticipated, so the Treasury Attorney's Office had been preparing for this eventuality.

Burford's motion comes after the setback suffered in the U.S. courts, where the New York Court of Appeals overturned a favorable ruling for the claimants that had established a multimillion-dollar payment by Argentina.

In this new phase, the fund invokes the Bilateral Investment Treaty between Argentina and Spain and resorts to the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), an arbitration body belonging to the World Bank Group.

An independent process from the trial in New York

One of the central points of the new stage is that the arbitration before the ICSID is independent of the U.S. judicial file. This means that a separate procedure must be initiated, with a new claim, its grounds, and the corresponding evidence.

Therefore, the new arbitration is not determined by what has occurred so far in the New York courts. Meanwhile, the judicial litigation in the United States continues its course, and the claimants could still appeal to the Supreme Court of that country.

At the ICSID, the next step will be the constitution of the arbitral tribunal. This process will take approximately 90 days. Once the tribunal is formed, the parties must establish the procedural calendar that will determine the different stages of the arbitration.

In the face of this new judicial offensive, the Treasury Attorney's Office highlighted that it has a specialized team with experience in complex international litigation and arbitration.

The agency is already working on the defense of the Republic and preparing the strategy to address the claim presented by Burford.