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Argentina on Wednesday lodged an appeal against a New York court ruling ordering it to pay nearly $16.1 billion to two companies that were not compensated in the nationalization of oil giant YPF. online news

Argentina in 2012 expropriated 51 percent of the shares of YPF, which was partially controlled by Spanish giant Repsol.

Two years later, Repsol was compensated with $5 billion to settle litigation.

Not so for minority shareholders such as Petersen Energia or Eton Park Capital, which together held 25.4 percent of YPF’s capital. In 2015, they filed a lawsuit alleging the country had not submitted a takeover bid as mandated by law.

Last month, a US judge ordered the South American country, mired in economic and political crisis, to compensate Petersen Energia and Eton Park Capital.

The expropriation case was brought in US courts because YPF shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

Argentina argues that such a payout would cause “irreparable damage to the (Argentine) population, which suffers from high inflation caused by an unprecedented drought,” according to the appeal filing as quoted by the Telam news agency.

Furthermore, “the country does not have access to the capital market to issue a bond and deposit a guarantee,” it said.

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