Argentina must pay millions to bring appeal after losing hedge funds’ lawsuit, UK Court of Appeal says

Argentina lost a lawsuit brought by four hedge funds over euro-denominated securities last year.

The country's lawyers have argued it should not be required to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to be able to appeal the ruling.

Judge Stephen Phillips today said Argentina should pay just under 310 million euros, which represents roughly 20 per cent of the total bill, to appeal.

In a written ruling, he said: “There is a very high risk that the republic will find the funds to appeal both to this court and, if permitted, to the Supreme Court, but will not pay the judgment if unsuccessful."

The judge gave Argentina a deadline of April 5 to pay the sum.

Four hedge funds, which held around 48 per cent of the GDP-linked securities issued between 2005 and 2010, sued Argentina in 2019.

They sought damages of up to 643 million euros, arguing the republic had a "propensity" to manipulate economic data to save billions of dollars.

However, the country's lawyers said "no rational government deliberately understates GDP".

They also pointed out the country had paid nearly $10billion to holders of its GDP-linked securities since they were first issued in 2005.

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Judge Simon Picken ruled in the funds' favour last year, stating Argentina should pay 643 million euros plus interest.

He also said Argentina should pay around 1.33 billion euros in relation to all of the GDP-linked securities, of which the funds hold around 48 per cent.

Argentina's lawyers said at the time that they were likely to seek permission to appeal against the ruling.