I’ve read most of the Lawfare article explaining what’s going on here, but it still rings false to me:
In September, a Southern District of New York (SDNY) judge ordered Argentina to pay $16 billion in damages to two minority shareholders of YPF, a state-controlled Argentinian oil company. The judgment was the result of a breach of contract related to Argentina’s 2012 nationalization of a controlling stake in the firm, and it is the largest-ever judgment against a sovereign country in a U.S. court. For perspective, it dwarfs the $2.4 billion settlement that hedge fund Elliot Management won, also in SDNY, in its (in)famous attempt to collect on Argentina’s defaulted public debts.
It’s not just the size of the penalty, which seems out of scale, but the fact that a Federal court can order a sovereign state to pay a penalty.
I wonder if it’ll ever be paid:
Although the district court has issued its final judgment, this does not mark the end of the case. Argentina has filed an appeal with the Second Circuit and has obtained a temporary suspension of the start of payments pending that appeal. Argentina’s president-elect, Javier Milei, has not yet commented on his administration’s proposed strategy in the case but has suggested that YPF will be reprivatized. For plaintiffs, the focus now shifts to collecting this unprecedented payment.
