Judge Loretta Preska, from New York, United States, in charge of the case for the nationalization of the majority of the shares of the oil company YPF, ordered the Argentine Republic to Deliver emails, WhatsApp messages and communications from other platforms of a dozen officials and former officials – among them Luis Caputo and Sergio Massa – to try to prove that they have manipulated fuel prices.
The order came from the court of the Second Southern District of New York, where Argentina was already sentenced to pay 16.1 billion dollars to the funds Burford Capital and Eton Park, which bought the rights to litigate against the expropriation of shares that belonged to the Petersen group, of the Eskenazi family.
The plaintiffs, seeing that it is highly unlikely that the national State will be able to pay the capital and interest (which have already accumulated almost US$ 900 million), are seeking to include YPF – which was originally removed – in the case again and seize its assets.
Burford’s argument is that YPF is the “alter ego” of the national State, and that instead of functioning strictly as indicated by its corporate form – a private Limited Company (SA) – it operates as one of the political objectives of the government in power.
For this reason, Judge Preska requested the communications of the current Minister of Economy and his predecessor – former presidential candidate – but also of the presidential advisor Santiago Caputo; the former vice-minister of Massa, Gabriel Rubinstein; the former head of Customs, Guillermo Michel, another of the Tigrean’s henchmen; and the former Secretary of Industry, José Ignacio de Mendiguren.