The Argentine Treasury Attorney General’s Office has submitted a formal request to the Southern District Court of New York, seeking to suspend the discovery process mandated by the court, along with the contempt motion initiated by Burford Capital in the ongoing trial concerning the 2012 expropriation of the state-owned energy company YPF. The government, in a statement addressed to Judge Loretta Preska, justified its request by asserting that Burford is “doubling down on their requests for increasingly intrusive and irrelevant discovery.” They noted that this is occurring even though, over the past two years, the nation has “produced anything that could reasonably lead to identification of its executable assets.” The text indicated that, notwithstanding these circumstances, the plaintiffs persist with their demands as their true objective is not to secure asset-related discovery but rather to “throw sand in the gears” of economic recovery, “harass the Republic into settling, or compel Argentina into contempt and inflict corresponding reputational harm.”
The contention arises from the protracted legal struggle that Argentina has been engaged in against Burford Capital within U.S. courts regarding the expropriation, a conflict that has persisted for over a decade. In 2023, Judge Loretta Preska determined that the nation had violated its contractual obligations and mandated a payment of US$16.1 billion, a ruling that Argentina’s legal representatives have contested. Wednesday’s filing follows the Argentine government’s decision on Tuesday to withhold information regarding the location and movements of the Central Bank’s gold reserves.
The denial addressed a request from Burford to classify the gold as part of the nation’s assets for use as partial payment. The Treasury’s statement on gold aligns with the government’s established position. Essentially, the argument posits that the gold is the property of the Central Bank, which operates as a distinct entity from the government. The hedge fund asserts that the monetary authority functions as a “alter ego” of the administration. Burford has alleged that Argentina is “concealing more than US$1 billion in gold reserves,” a claim that the government’s legal representatives have disputed as false. The Argentine government stated that “nothing has been ‘concealed’.”
“The [Central Bank] publishes information about the amount of the gold reserves it holds,” Argentina’s letter stated, adding that the country “has repeatedly explained that all gold reserves are the property of and managed by the Central Bank,” which is a “legally separate and distinct” entity from the government.