Clash of Titans Between Privileged Labor and Tax Claims: A Copernican Shift by the Argentine Supreme Court
By Hon. Verónica F. Martínez and Javier A. Lorente
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In the wake of Argentina’ s 1994 constitutional reform and the enactment of the 2015 Civil and Commercial Code( CCCN), the legal system entered a process of " constitutionalizing private law ". Courts are now expected to interpret and apply domestic legislation in harmony with the National Constitution and binding human rights treaties.
This transformation has had far-reaching consequences across various areas of law— including insolvency proceedings— by subjecting long-standing legal rules, such as those enshrined in the Argentine Bankruptcy Law( ABL,
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Law No. 24,522), to new constitutional and supranational standards.
A particularly delicate area affected by this evolution concerns the ranking of privileged claims. While Argentina’ s insolvency framework is built upon a closed statutory system of creditor priorities, labor claims, constitutionally protected under Article 14 bis and reinforced by international treaties, have increasingly come into tension with other claims, such as public( tax) claims.
Against this backdrop, the recent“ Acevedo” 1 ruling by the Argentine Supreme Court( CSJN) has further exposed the fragility of the privilege system by marking a dramatic departure
1 Acevedo, Eva María v Manufactura Textil San Justo, Bankruptcy( CSJN, 3 April 2025) Fallos 348:189. from prior jurisprudence. It revisits the conflict between labor and tax privileges and reverses the trend of extending international labor protections into the insolvency arena— thereby reinforcing the rigidity of the statutory priority scheme.
This confrontation has created notable interpretative instability within the current insolvency framework. Although other issues involving vulnerable and / or hyper-vulnerable creditors also pose significant challenges for today’ s insolvency practice, they fall outside the scope of this article 2. Labor Privileges in Insolvency Proceedings The principle of equal treatment among creditors( par conditio creditorum) governs insolvency law, ensuring equitable satisfaction of claims. This foundational principle admits statutory exceptions through classification and privileges, which must be legally established, narrowly construed, and indivisible in nature.
Under Argentine law, labor claims enjoy a dual privileged status— both special and general— placing employees ahead of ordinary creditors. These privileges are reinforced by procedural benefits, including expedited payment and, in certain cases, continued accrual of interest despite the commencement of insolvency proceedings.
Legislative policy in Argentina has historically aimed to progressively strengthen worker protections, as a vulnerable group, in line
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We refer in particular to the cases Asociación Francesa Filantrópica y de Beneficencia( AFFyB) s / Quiebra s / Incidente de verificación de crédito por LAR y otro( CSJN, 6 November 2018) La Ley, AR / JUR / 56326 / 2018; Institutos Médicos Antártida SA s / Quiebra s / Incidente de verificación de crédito promovido por Ricardo A Fava y Liliana R Harreguy de Fava( CSJN, 26 March 2019) La Ley, AR / JUR / 1632 / 2019.