The fund specializes in litigating cases around the world such as that of YPF. They are not specialists in financial investments (much less in the energy or oil world), but their specialty is mega-trials for million-dollar lawsuits.
The main plaintiff in the case expropriation of YPF is he Burford vulture backgroundwhich is about to close the best deal in its history. As Ámbito revealed some time ago, orOriginally, the fund specialized in litigating around the world in cases like that of YPF, had bought 70% of the case; and currently holds 30%, having placed the rest of the cause to private investors (in principle about 10 mutual investment funds). The 40% that had already been sold was placed at different moments in the progress of the case and as the current moment approached, its price increased, granting it to Burford (a specialist in managing the supply and demand times of the cases he is litigating). ), extraordinary profits.
The CEO and founder in 2009 is former Vice President of Legal Affairs at Time Warner, Christopher Bogart, leader of an army of 350 lawyers and legal experts. A graduate of the University of Western Ontario School of Law, Bogart today has offices in Chicago, Washington, Singapore, Sydney, Hong Kong and Dubaiin addition to London and New York, where Burford is listed. His strategy, as he does in the case of the nationalization of YPF, is “buying” judgments. It finances litigation and then keeps part of the profits.
According to Bogart’s admission, since 2009 his fund has generated US$2.2 billion in investment returns from carrying out sentences, equivalent to an average rate of 88% per trial, but it has US$4.6 billion in sentences from ongoing cases. .
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In the YPF case, Burford claims for the alleged damages that the payment to the Spanish Repsol caused to the remaining 49% of the oil company’s shareholders, after the nationalization of 2012. That money would go, in part (about US$1,000 million of the US$3,000 million it demands) to the coffers of the Burford fund. It’s still a mystery (although there are all kinds of suspicions) about who owns the rights to the other millions of dollars that the country will have to liquidate. Some of these speculations speak of strong (and very serious) local political ties of the owners of the shares that claim the rights to that money.
The lawsuit was initiated for the expropriation of the majority of the oil company’s shares, but in the name of the Spanish companies Petersen Energía and Petersen Inversora, two companies today in bankruptcy, opened by the Petersen Group in the days when it was a partner for 25% of YPF and since former president Néstor Kirchner made them enter as part of the oil company.
The Petersen Group today is absolutely outside the claim and the rights to collect, a situation that is judicially clarified in the Spanish justice system and recognized by the Burfords themselves who gave up claiming against Petersen. The big mystery, for now, in this mega-case is who Burford’s partner in the claims is. This person (or persons) or companies will receive, with Argentina’s defeat in the trial, billions of dollars that the country will have to pay them.
The case is based on Burford’s claim for the way in which the oil company was nationalized without carrying out a Public Acquisition Offer (OPA), as contained in the statute defined in 1993 during the privatization promoted during the presidency of Carlos Menem. There, the country undertook on the New York Stock Exchange that any subsequent acquisition operation of a portion of the Argentine oil company would require an offer to be made for all the shares on the market.
To add mystery to the case, in June 2020 Burford announced to its shareholders the sale of 15% of the lawsuit for US$66 million. In that operation, The English capital fund specialized in filing lawsuits after failed renationalizations, the valuation applied to the case was US$440 million, instead of the US$3,000 claimed in the United States courts.
Burford is not a specialist in financial investments (much less in the energy or oil world), but his specialty is mega-trials for million-dollar lawsuits, in general, to bankrupt companies or bankrupt companies that have undefined previous lawsuits and that need cash to face its closure or bankruptcy.
Source: Ambito
