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European courts liberate Argentine funds embargoed by 'holdouts'
El Cronista
June 25, 2009

Court in Hamburg revoked decision to hold taxes owed by firms with branches in the country. In France, they had captured money of official dependencies.

Argentina triumphed once again before the attempts by the holdouts to embargo its assets, by having court decisions in Germany and France revoked which had blocked Argentine state funds since March and April.

According to a statement yesterday from the Solicitor of the Treasury, led by Osvaldo Guglielmino, in the case of Germany, Judge W lber of the Hamburg Court annulled the judicial decision of March 25 which had ordered the embargo of money from multinational companies which have branches in Argentina, owed to Argentine tax authorities as taxes in the country.

The embargo, now no longer in effect, had been ordered as part of the lawsuits that holders of local public debt had initiated against Argentina soon after the default, and who didn't enter the swap of 2005.

The judge concluded that the previous judge who ordered the embargo did not have international jurisdiction over the assets that were subject to the action the taxes which were not found in Germany. In this sense, in general, the request of taxes by States can only be subject to proceedings of local execution in the sovereign territory of the State which requests them. In this specific case, considering that only within Argentine sovereign territory the country could demand tax payments by those subject to it, it is unfounded that there are assets under the jurisdiction of German courts, upon which they could exert orders.

There were various attempts to retain funds in different German regions. In all the cases, the affected companies and Argentina appealed. With the first favorable decision pulled off by the country, the expectation of the government is that the rest of the cases will be resolved in the same manner, in Argentina's favor.

Simultaneously, a French court ordered the lifting of the embargo that since April 3rd had been placed on Argentina's accounts in France, whose use was for, among other things, the Argentine Embassy, the Argentine delegation to UNESCO, the Casa Argentina, the Defense Attache, and the Tourism Office.

Those funds had been embargoed amidst lawsuits filed by the vulture fund NML against Argentina as a holder of local public debt.

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