Mexico Will Not Answer for Salinas Pliego's Debt: A Defeat for US Creditors
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A World Bank tribunal unanimously tossed the US funds' US$219M claim over TV Azteca's bonds and ordered them to cover Mexico's arbitration costs.

This article by the SinEmbargo editorial staff originally appeared in the August 5, 2026 edition of SinEmbargo, a Mexican independent digital news outlet.

Mexico City, August 5 (SinEmbargo).— Mexico obtained a favorable ruling in the international arbitration brought by the US funds Cyrus Capital Partners, L.P. and Contrarian Capital Management, L.L.C., which were claiming more than US$219 million related to the debt of TV Azteca, owned by businessman Ricardo Salinas Pliego, under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Secretariat of Economy reported this Wednesday.

The federal agency explained that, in December 2023, the companies initiated arbitration against the country before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) —a World Bank body charged with resolving disputes between investors and states— to obtain compensation for alleged damages stemming from a court ruling issued in Mexico City related to debt bonds issued by the broadcaster, which were carried out through subsidiaries established in the Cayman Islands.

That dispute originated after the broadcaster issued international bonds for nearly 400 million dollars in 2017 and subsequently stopped covering the payments. In 2022, a civil court in Mexico City granted the company an extension to avoid meeting its obligations, considering that the COVID-19 pandemic constituted a force majeure event for the non-payment of the debt, a recourse that remains in effect.

#ComunicadoEconomía 🗞

México gana arbitraje internacional ante el CIADI quedando desestimada una reclamación que superaba 219 millones de dólares en contra del país

🔗 https://t.co/XhtDLHykQr pic.twitter.com/AfVMto16AF

— Economía México (@SE_mx) August 5, 2026

In a statement, the Secretariat of Economy stressed that, from the start of the arbitration, Mexico maintained that this was not the proper avenue to resolve the arbitration, much less matters related to the dispute between Cyrus and Contrarian and TV Azteca, “in which the Government of Mexico has no involvement whatsoever.”

As a result, the country’s defense focused on demonstrating that the US funds’ claims had serious deficiencies that prevented the Arbitral Tribunal from resolving the dispute under NAFTA, so that on July 30 the Arbitral Tribunal resolved the case in Mexico’s favor unanimously.

“In essence, the Tribunal determined that neither Cyrus nor Contrarian could be considered investors and did not have an investment under NAFTA, so it ruled that it lacked jurisdiction to resolve the case, dismissing the arbitration in its entirety,” the agency noted.

In addition, the US investors were ordered to pay a considerable amount for the expenses and costs of the arbitration in Mexico’s favor.

The Mexican State’s defense was handled by the General Directorate of International Trade Legal Consulting, attached to the Undersecretariat of Foreign Trade, with the support of the firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP.

The Secretariat of Economy indicated that the award is under review to identify confidential information subject to protection, but once that process is concluded it will be published on the ICSID website, where additional information about this arbitration is also available.

The Judicial Dispute in the United States

The judicial dispute dates back to 2017, when the broadcaster issued 400 million dollars (more than 7 billion pesos) in debt securities under an agreement to pay interest semiannually at an annual rate of 8.25 percent, but in 2020 it stopped complying, citing financial pressures from the pandemic. The US investors, through subsidiaries established in the Cayman Islands, acquired those debt bonds, which have kept growing to date. Today, the amount owed is 630 million dollars.

TV Azteca used a “secret proceeding” to obtain a precautionary measure from Judge Miguel Ángel Robles Villegas in order to avoid paying its lenders in the US. In 2020, this judge granted a measure that barred the claims against TV Azteca from being enforced in litigation outside Mexico. All of it under the cover of alleged pandemic damages, even though Salinas Pliego’s companies were among the only ones that forced their employees to work in the middle of the health emergency.

Now the US creditors are seeking to modify and expand their lawsuit against the broadcaster in the Southern District Court of New York; they accuse it of concealing the assets with which it must answer for its debts and of using the insolvency proceeding underway in Mexico to “systematically breach” the terms of the contract they signed at the time for the issuance of the bonds. Consequently, they are demanding more than 600 million dollars for a loan that has not been paid.

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