Cassels Brock
MONTH-IN-BRIEF (Apr 2026)
Argentina’s Fiscal Relief
By Barbara Efraim and Thomas Morante, Pierson Ferdinand
On March 27, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit gave Argentina and current as well as potential foreign investors in Argentina a reason to celebrate. After more than a decade of litigation involving a case of ownership of shares in a gas company nationalized by Argentina in 2012, the Second Circuit reversed a lower court ruling that would have imposed on Argentina US$16.1 billion in damages and inevitable loss of prospective foreign investment.
Following Argentina’s nationalization in 2012 of its largest oil and gas company, YPF S.A. (“YPF”) through the passage of Law No. 26,741, minority shareholders sued the Argentine government in Petersen Energía Inversora S.A.U. v. Argentine Republic in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Then–Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner seized 51 percent of shares of YPF from the majority stakeholder, Spanish energy firm Repsol, in an apparent effort to increase state control over the economy. The remaining 49 percent of shares in YPF were owned by a group of minority shareholders, including Petersen Energía Inversora S.A.U. (“Petersen”). At the time of the expropriation, shares representing the remaining 49 percent of YPF were distributed equally among the Argentine provinces that comprised the Organización Federal de Estados Productores de Hidrocarburos.