Business & Economics
Second Circuit Grants Argentina Stay on YPF Stake Turnover
On 15 Aug 2025 the U.S. Second Circuit temporarily froze Judge Loretta Preska’s 30 Jun order compelling Argentina to hand over its 51 % holding in YPF to satisfy a US$16.1 billion judgment, giving Buenos Aires time to pursue its appeal.
Focusing Facts
- Preska’s June 30 2025 turnover order targeted 51 % of YPF shares—valued around US$7 billion—and demanded they be deposited in a BNY Mellon account within 14 days.
- The underlying US$16.1 billion judgment was entered in Sept 2023 in favor of Petersen Energía Inversora and Eton Park Capital Management, both financed by Burford Capital.
- The appeals panel also granted the U.S. government permission to file an amicus brief supporting Argentina’s sovereign-immunity defense.
Context
States expropriating strategic resources then colliding with foreign courts is not new: when Mexico nationalised its oil sector in 1938 it faced bond-holder lawsuits in New York for years, and Chile’s 1971 copper seizures triggered a decade of arbitration. Argentina’s 2012 YPF takeover—done without a tender offer—echoes that lineage. The stay highlights two long-term dynamics: (1) the gradual erosion yet persistence of the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act’s protections as federal judges test the ‘commercial activity’ exception; and (2) the rising power of litigation funders like Burford, which monetize sovereign-risk disputes much as bondholders did after Argentina’s 2001 default. Whether the shares eventually change hands matters less to day-to-day energy output than to the precedent it could set: if U.S. courts can seize equity in a foreign flagship firm, every emerging-market nationalisation since the 1990s may be reopened. On a 100-year horizon, this case sits in the larger, cyclical contest between resource sovereignty and global capital markets—an issue that flares whenever commodities or geopolitics shift, then cools once a new legal equilibrium is reached.
Perspectives
Local Argentine press
Buenos Aires Times — Portrays the stay as a welcome reprieve that eases pressure on President Javier Milei’s government and strengthens hopes of overturning the US$16-billion judgment. Echoes the Argentine government’s talking points, casting the ruling as a political win ahead of elections while glossing over minority-shareholder claims and prior court findings against the state.
International financial wire services
Reuters, U.S. News & World Report, London South East — Frames the stay as a procedural pause in a case where investors already hold a US$16.1 billion judgment stemming from Argentina’s 2012 seizure of YPF, underscoring that the country could still be forced to surrender the stake. Centers the narrative on investor rights and Argentina’s long-running ‘evasion,’ implicitly siding with financial markets and giving less attention to sovereign-asset or domestic-economic arguments.