U.S. Circuit Court Holds Argentina’s Central Bank May Invoke Sovereign Immunity to Avoid Liability (August 31, 2015) [1]
On August 31, 2015, U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jose Cabranes held [3] in EM Ltd. v. Banco Central de la Republica Argentina (BCRA) that Argentina’s central bank has the ability to invoke its sovereign immunity to avoid liability in a suit brought by U.S. investment firms because no exceptions to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) applied in the case. It overruled the District Court’s finding [4] that BCRA had waived its sovereign immunity because Argentina imputed its waiver of sovereign immunity for a Fiscal Agency Agreement (which included the bonds in question) on its central bank. According to the Court of Appeals, the alter ego theory failed because it could not be established that “the Republic so extensively controlled BCRA’s day‐to‐day operations as to transform BCRA into the Republic’s alter ego” and there was no proof that Argentina used BCRA’s separate identity to “work fraud or injustice.” The Court also declined the commercial activity exception, because the commercial activity in question, the purchase of dollars through a U.S. account, was not sufficiently connected to the “gravamen of the complaint.”