Enforceability of judgments against sovereign States: critical analysis of the NML vs. Argentina injunction

Sentences against sovereign States are difficult to enforce in courts. The Court of New York, in “NML Capital Ltd. vs. Argentina” (NML), tried to solve this situation with an injunction that blocked the payments of Argentina’s sovereign debt. The specialized literature has theoretically predicted th...

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Bibliographic Details
Author: Manzo, Alejandro
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2018
Country:Brasil
Institution:Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV)
Repository:Revista Direito GV
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs.periodicos.fgv.br:article/77115
Online Access:https://periodicos.fgv.br/revdireitogv/article/view/77115
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Sovereign debt
Vulture funds
Injunction
Sovereign immunity
Enforceability
Dívida soberana
Fundos oportunistas
Linjunction
Imunidade soberana
Extraterritorialidade
Description
Summary:Sentences against sovereign States are difficult to enforce in courts. The Court of New York, in “NML Capital Ltd. vs. Argentina” (NML), tried to solve this situation with an injunction that blocked the payments of Argentina’s sovereign debt. The specialized literature has theoretically predicted that this injunction would cause harm to third parties and problems with other States. This article empirically corroborates these predictions with the analysis of a trial derived from NML: the “Citibank Argentina” case. The analysis of this case confirms the restraints presented by the literature about the lack of proper consideration of the requirements that the American legal system imposes for the applicability of an injunction that affects third parties and operates extraterritorially. Similarly, this paper argues that there are solid legal reasons for the authorities of third countries to declare inadmissible the extraterritorial effects of an injunction, such as the one obtained by NML, when those effects fall on assets and agents located in these authorities jurisdiction.