A new setback for Argentina: another court ruled against the state in the PBI voucher case

Argentina received a new ruling against it in international courts in less than a week. in Great Britain, Justice Simon Pekin of the London High Court found the country guilty in the case known as the “GDP coupon”.. The country was accused of adjusting the way GDP is calculated to avoid paying interest on a debt issued in 2005, as the stock exchange defaulted in 2001.

In London, the Court approved the funds of the four claimants, Palladian Partners, HBK Master Fund, Hirsh Group LLC and Virtual Emerald International LimitedArgentina must pay damages and compensation for 643 million euros ($704 million), according to Reuters.

The judge also ruled that Argentina must pay around 1.33 billion euros For all GDP-linked securities, of which the four funds own approximately 48%.

The legal firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, which represents the funds that sued the country, knows Argentina closely, because it defended other funds in the debt restructuring carried out by former Minister of Economy Martin Guzman, in 2020.

In addition to the trial in London, there is another similar lawsuit in New York, but the trial has not yet begun in US courts.

In 2005, when then-Minister of the Economy, Roberto Lavagna, and his Finance Minister, Guillermo Nielsen (now Argentina’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia), made an offer to swap titles in the event of a payment since 2001, they suggested that it was “domesticated” – as you say in financial jargon – A coupon linked to the development of GDP, which is paid if the country grows above 3% of the product (it claimed a higher level of growth in the early years and then fell to 3%).

The problem that launched the trial occurred in 2014, when the then Minister of Economy, Axel Kiselov (Buenos Aires governor today) announced a change in the product account rule, Which practically reduced the country’s growth figures from 2013. With this change, the country could not grow above 3.26% as specified in that year’s coupon.

For this statistical change, The Aurelius Fund filed a lawsuit in New York in 2019, Although the contingencies are divided into various lawsuits against Argentina in courts in that country and in the United Kingdom. . According to sources familiar with the lawsuit, the lawsuit could cost the state more than $1.3 billion.