(Can anyone find any awards actualy paid, other than Chile's partial payment?)

By
• MATT MOFFETT

BUENOS AIRES—If Repsol YPF SA REP.MC +1.68% contests Argentina's nationalization of its local energy assets before the World Bank's arbitration center, the Spanish company will have to take a place in what is already a long line of aggrieved corporate plaintiffs.

Argentina has more cases pending before the Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, or ICSID, than any other country—25 of the total of 147. Many of those suits stem from disputes between utility operators and Argentina's government over changes imposed in tariffs and contracts following its currency devaluation a decade ago.

But even in the cases that Argentina has lost, no company has yet been able to collect damages. In a controversial strategy, Argentina has invoked Article 54 of the ICSID convention, which it argues requires the companies to collect through an Argentine court. The corporate plaintiffs have so far declined to do so, asserting that the requirement defeats the purpose of international arbitration, and subjects them to potentially politicized justice in Argentina.

The Obama administration agrees with the companies and last month took the unusual step of suspending trade benefits against Argentina for failing to pay up on arbitration awards.

In the aftermath of leftist President Cristina Kirchner's move this week to nationalize most of Repsol's stake in Argentine oil giant YPF SA, YPF +8.09% legal analysts say there may be lessons in other companies' experiences with Argentina at the ICSID. "Even if you sue and win, that doesn't mean you necessarily can collect," said Juan Basombrio, an attorney who specializes in international arbitration and litigation at the firm of Dorsey and Whitney. "I think the smartest thing [for Repsol] is trying to reach an amicable settlement."

That may be easier said than done, with Argentina denouncing Repsol for "colonialism" and Repsol accusing Argentina of having deliberately driven down its stock price before the nationalization to lower a potential compensation payout.

Officials at Argentina's embassy in Washington and its Justice Ministry in Buenos Aires didn't respond to requests to comment on the ICSID cases. But statements and position papers on the ICSID figure prominently on the website of Argentina's Washington embassy. Argentina says the number of cases against it, and its proportion of total ICSID cases, is substantially lower than it was at its peak in 2004, and some $15 billion in investment disputes have been settled. Argentina notes that several arbitration cases against it have been set aside and that even some plaintiffs who won got smaller damage awards than they had originally sought.

Still, Washington has taken notice of Argentina's unpaid ICSID judgments, including an award of $165 million plus interest to Azurix Corp., a Texas-based water company, and $133 million plus interest to Blue Ridge Investments, a subsidiary of Bank of America BAC +0.64% that acquired another U.S. utility's claim against Argentina.

Last month, in response to what Washington considers foot-dragging by Argentina, the U.S. suspended some of the trade benefits Argentina received as a developing country under the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences. The move affected Argentine exporters of cheese, leather, strawberries and some other goods.

A statement from President Barack Obama said that Argentina "has not acted in good faith in enforcing arbitral awards in favor of U.S. owned companies." Argentina has insisted it is only playing by the rules laid out by the ICSID.

The ICSID was created as a forum for resolving international investment disputes in 1966 and has seen its caseload—and the controversy it generates—grow with globalization. Analysts say Washington's efforts to press Argentina for payment may be part of an effort to tamp down a growing rebellion against the ICSID from Latin American leftist leaders. In 2009, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa withdrew Ecuador from the ICSID convention, asserting that the organization "signifies colonialism [and] slavery with respect to transnationals, with respect to Washington, with respect to the World Bank." He was following the lead of Bolivia, which had pulled out in 2007. Earlier this year, strongman Hugo Chávez moved to take Venezuela out of the ICSID.

The increasing recalcitrance toward the arbitration body has provoked heated discussion in legal circles, reflected in recent academic papers with titles like "The Icsid Under Siege" by Leon E. Trakman, a law professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Still, a recently-published statistical analysis of Icsid awards before 2007, by Washington and Lee University law professor Susan D. Franck, couldn't find evidence of bias against Latin American governments.

Regarding the slew of cases stemming from the 2001-2002 economic collapse, Argentina has argued that "the emergency measures were proportionate to the extreme prevailing circumstances." Argentina had five different presidents within a two-week period, while the economy contracted 10.9% in 2002. So Argentina said it felt justified in overhauling the previously agreed-to system by which utility tariffs were adjusted according to the U.S. Producer Price Index, and tariffs were calculated in dollars.

Argentina would doubtless make similar arguments of economic emergency in the Repsol case, lawyers say. President Cristina Kirchner has insisted that Argentina faces a dire threat from falling oil production and growing dependence on energy imports, and blames Repsol for not investing more.

The immediate comments from Spanish officials indicate they may not fully appreciate the difficulties they will face making a case against Argentina stick, says Jose Alberro, a consultant at the Berkeley Research Group who has served as an arbitrator at the Icsid and the American Arbitration Association. He says declarations from Spanish politicians suggest that "Spain knows nothing about what international arbitration is about."

Mercedes Fernández, a partner in charge of arbitration and litigation for Jones Day in Madrid who has dueled with Argentina in two international arbitration cases representing Spanish companies in the last 10 years, says Argentina's strategy can be "to use all means available to obstruct and delay the arbitration proceedings," which could exhaust the plaintiff's patience and ward off other potential claimants from bringing cases.

—Ilan Brat in Madrid contributed to this article.

Write to Matt Moffett at matthew.moffett@wsj.com