French Supreme Court Upholds Argentina’s Immunity despite Waiver

Last week, the French Supreme Court for private and criminal matters (Cour de cassation) set aside three series of enforcement measures carried out by NML Capital Ltd against the Republic of Argentina in three judgments dated 28 March 2013 (see here, here and here).

Readers will recall that NML Capital Ltd was the beneficial owner of bonds issued by Argentina in year 2000. As the relevant financial contracts contained a clause granting jurisdiction to New York courts, the creditor sued Argentina before a U.S. federal court, and obtained in 2006 a judgment for USD 284 million. In the summer 2009, NML Capital initiated enforcement proceedings in Europe.

The contracts also contained a waiver of immunity from enforcement. NML Capital first attached assets covered by diplomatic immunity. In a judgment of 28 September 2011, the Cour de cassation ruled that the waiver did not cover diplomatic assets. This was because, the Court explained, diplomatic immunity is governed by special rules which require a waiver to be both express and specific, i.e. provide specifically that it covers diplomatic assets. As the Court was aware that the 1961 Vienna Convention only provides that waiver of diplomatic immunity should be express, the Court ruled that the special rules governing diplomatic immunity were to be found in customary international law.

This time, NML Capital focused on non diplomatic assets. It attached monies owed by French companies to Argentina through their local branches (and could thus be attached from France). The assets were public, however: they were tax and social security claims. But, at first sight, they fell within the scope of the waiver. Indeed, I understand that the Republic of Argentina had waived immunity “for the Republic, or any of its revenues, assets or property”.

Requirements for Waiving Sovereign Immunity

International law is changing really fast in Paris, however. The Cour de cassation decided to extend its new doctrine that waiver of immunity of enforcement should be both express and specific to public assets. The new rule is that waivers should specifically mention the assets or categories of assets to which they apply. As a consequence, as the waiver did not specifically mention, the Court found, tax and social revenues, it did not apply to them.

The judgments also explain that the new rule originates from customary public international law, as reflected in the 2004 UN Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Property. This is clearly the most creative part of the judgments.

Article 19 of the 2004 Convention reads:

Article 19
State immunity from post-judgment measures of constraint
No post-judgment measures of constraint, such as attachment, arrest or execution, against property of a State may be taken in connection with a proceeding before a court of another State unless and except to the extent that:
(a) the State has expressly consented to the taking of such measures as indicated:
(i) by international agreement;
(ii) by an arbitration agreement or in a written contract; or

I am not sure where the requirement that the waiver be asset specific appears.

Furthermore, when Germany argued that Article 19 reflected customary international law in the Jurisdictional Immunities of the State case, the International Court of Justice responded:

117. When the United Nations Convention was being drafted, these provisions gave rise to long and difficult discussions. The Court considers that it is unnecessary for purposes of the present case for it to decide whether all aspects of Article 19 reflect current customary international law.

Human Rights

Interestingly enough, the Cour de cassation also refers to several judgments of the European Court of Human Rights which held that rules on sovereign immunities necessarily comply with the ECHR as long as they reflect international law.

In other words, the French court recognizes that should it grant a wider immunity to foreign states than the one recognized by international law, it might infringe the European Convention. The ECHR also considers that the 2004 UN Convention reflects customary international law, but would it read Article 19 as liberally as the Cour de cassation?