A court ruled on Tuesday that former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner will not have to pay AR$22.3 billion (US$17 million) as part of a civil suit in the corruption scandal known as Vialidad. Judge Marcelo Bruno Dos Santos cited the inaction of the National Road Administration, which had allowed a six-month deadline issued in 2018 to expire. 

Kirchner is serving six years under house arrest after being found criminally liable in the same case. She was convicted of funneling 51 public works contracts in Santa Cruz province to a company belonging to her friend Lázaro Báez — an arrangement that the Argentine judiciary deemed fraudulent. 

As part of her conviction, she and several others, including former Secretary of Public Works José López, were ordered in July to return AR$685 billion (US$542 million) that prosecutors determined they had received in these sweetheart deals.

The Federal Civil and Commercial Court No. 2 originally dismissed the civil suit filed by the national government in 2018 during Mauricio Macri’s presidency. Kirchner’s lawyers argued that the statute of limitations on the National Road Administration’s claim expired on March 28, 2025, and that “no progress” had been made on the case.

In his ruling, Dos Santos affirmed that the inactivity necessitated “the total paralysis of the respective proceedings.”

According to him, this inactivity spanned the presidencies of the Peronist Alberto Fernández and the far-right libertarian Javier Milei. The National Road Administration would have been able to appeal the ruling, but the Milei administration dissolved the agency last month.

On June 10, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction against Kirchner and her associates, officially exhausting their appeals process. Federal Court No. 2 granted her house arrest one week later. 

In addition to her six-year sentence and financial penalty, Kirchner has been banned from holding public office for life.