MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Barclays’, Argentina’s debt swap operator accused of oil interests in Falklands

Ministers Boudou and Taiana accused of negligence and hiding information

Two Argentine solicitors announced they will be pressing criminal charges against the Ministry of Economy for having contracted Britain’s Barclays’ bank for a major sovereign defaulted bonds swap and this financial institution is “a shareholder of Desire Petroleum, the oil company which is poised to begin exploration operations this month in Malvinas waters”.

The demand will also include the Argentine Foreign Affairs ministry (Jorge Taiana) for not having revealed the close links of the British bank with companies involved in oil and logistic operations in the Argentine continental shelf, thus violating clearly established Argentine legislation.

Mario Cafiero, an ex-member of Congress and Ricardo Monner Sanz, a former prosecutor are known to be closely linked to nationalist groups in Argentina but insisting in the respect for rule of the law and have openly campaigned for transparency and human rights in Argentina.

In their presentation the solicitors argue that it has been well known and broadcasted, since early January that an exploratory oil rig, “Ocean Guardian” contracted by the UK company Desire Petroleum is on its way to the South Atlantic to begin drilling several exploratory wells “in an area that clearly and undisputedly belongs to Argentine sovereignty”.

Faced with this most serious attack on “our territorial integrity” the Argentine government expressed its “most energetic” and inconsequential “protest” to British officials and apparently did not go further because “one of the main shareholders of Desire Petroleum is precisely Barclays Bank Plc that has been contracted by Argentina for the re-opening of the sovereign debt swap”.

According to Resolution 267/2009 from last October 23, Minister of Economy Amado Boudou approved an agreement by which Barclays’ was named “General Coordinator” of the operation which also includes Citibank and Deutsche Bank.

“As you all remember this process, during January, under went a series of institutional commotion events which ended with the ousting of the Central Bank president following the request from those banks that the Central bank’s reserves be offered as collateral for the debt-swap in process. This generated a promiscuous situation involving the foreign debt, the indispensable support for our currency and the very serious foreign conflict we face as a nation”, underlines Cafiero.

Besides, according to the presentation Barclays as a “non operational” investor in Desire Petroleum eluded stating this condition in Argentina’s Oil production companies registry, created by resolution 407/2007, precisely with the purpose of “impeding the activity in our country of companies, partners, associates or shareholders involved in oil and gas exploitation on the maritime continental shelf without the due Argentine authorization”.

However, “with an action that seems to go beyond negligence Minister Boudou honoured Barclays naming them global coordinator for Argentina to the effect of the debt swap negotiations which means putting London at the heart of our financial problems, allege the plaintiffs who demand the immediate derogation of resolution 267.