US court upholds $390m Aerolíneas ruling against Argentina
A US appeals court has upheld a $390 million arbitral award against Argentina over the 2008 Aerolíneas expropriation, empowering creditors to hunt for state assets and reviving a separate halted claim.
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has rejected Argentina’s bid to dismiss a $390,907,115 arbitral award tied to the 2008 nationalization of Aerolíneas Argentinas and Austral Líneas Aéreas. The Tuesday ruling leaves the judgment standing as of December 10, 2024, with additional interest accruing, empowering the claimant to continue pursuing Argentine state assets within US jurisdictions.
The decisive factor was the statute of limitations. The appellate court upheld a 2024 lower court ruling that a 12-year window applies to enforcing the award, dismissing Argentina's argument that only a three-year period was valid.
While the judgment does not mandate immediate payment, it represents a critical milestone in the enforcement phase. Because ICSID awards are not automatically enforceable, Titan Consortium petitioned US courts in 2021 to establish the legal footing required to locate and seize Argentine assets. The appeals court's validation now formally unlocks those asset-hunting mechanisms.
The dispute also highlights the lucrative nature of the sovereign litigation finance market. The original 2017 ICSID tribunal ordered Argentina to pay roughly $321 million plus costs. Britain's Burford Capital acquired the economic rights to the claim before selling them to Titan Consortium for about $107 million in 2018. The upheld $390 million valuation represents a substantial premium for the litigation funders.
Beyond the immediate financial exposure, the ruling has broader implications for Argentina's sovereign risk profile. Analyst Sebastián Maril, director of Latam Advisors, noted that the decision revives the Webuild case, which had been placed on hold pending this specific outcome.
Argentina's Treasury Attorney General's Office said it is analyzing “all available legal tools to overturn or at least mitigate the impact of that ruling.” The agency attributed the liability to decisions made nearly two decades ago, reflecting the current government's effort to distance itself from an "inheritance of lost lawsuits" initiated under previous administrations.
