BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Argentina’s state oil company YPF has agreed to pay nearly $300 million to the creditors of one of its now-bankrupt subsidiaries after they sued the company in relation to a historical U.S. environmental case, it said.
The case against Maxus Energy Corporation, which YPF acquired in the 1990s, dates back to 2005, when the state of New Jersey successfully sued the subsidiary for the contamination of the Passaic River decades earlier.
In 2016, Maxus Energy Corporation filed for chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. YPF said its former subsidiary had met its obligations until then, without specifying if these were financial or environmental.
In 2018, the liquidation trust that was created to help settle Maxus Energy Corporation’s debts sued YPF for $14 billion over the New Jersey case, alongside Spanish oil company Repsol, which it included as YPF’s majority owner between 1999 and 2012.
Under the conciliation agreement reached this week, the Maxus Liquidation Trust agreed to drop the claims it had filed against both YPF and co-defendant Spanish oil company Repsol, the statement issued by YPF said.
In turn, YPF and Repsol agreed to pay the trust $287.5 million each, without admitting any responsibility.
Madrid-based Repsol did not immediately respond to a request for further comment on a public holiday in Spain.
(Reporting by Maximilian Heath; writing by Stefanie Eschenbacher; editing by Jan Harvey)
