The Buenos Aires judiciary is preparing a new calculation to limit interests

As a superior court, it is now trying to organize a scenario with different criteria in the national labor jurisdiction and set a single parameter

12/08/2025 – 11:34 am

The Supreme Court of the City of Buenos Aires (TSJ) is working on it set a uniform criterion for updating compensation and fines in the event of termination. The aim of defining a unified index is to organize a scenario with different criteria in national labor courts and to establish a predictability parameter for future decisions.

The TSJ was configured as highest review body for labor, civil, commercial and criminal cases in the national justice system after the Supreme Court’s decision in the Levinas case.

To date, the National Labor Appeals Chamber has applied different criteria. The majority of theaters used the criterion of updating based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) plus 3% per year. In room 10 only the CPI was applied, while in room 8 the reference stabilization coefficient (CER) was used. Recently, the Chamber indicated that from 2024 it would be appropriate to apply the active interest rate of the Banco Nación. This diversity gave rise to conflicts that resulted in the overturning of judgments by the Supreme Court when accrued interest was found to be excessive.

Labor interests and dismissal compensation: What the highest court in Buenos Aires analyzes

The Buenos Aires TSJ is currently analyzing three possible lines to create a single index. The first replicates the CPI criterion plus 3% annually, established in Article 276 of DNU 70/23. Although the labor chapter of this standard has been declared unconstitutional and is not in force, the Executive Branch has reincorporated the same mechanism in the labor reform project that it will submit to Congress. The proposal aims to limit the judicial discretion in rollover calculations and also includes the prohibition of applying interest to interest (anatokism).

The second alternative is to use the Ripte Index (Average Taxable Remuneration of Stable Workers) as a reference, which is currently used to update amounts in workplace injury litigation. The third option is to set an index with a floor and a ceiling based on the CPI, thereby limiting the adjustment margins.

The Legal Axis: How to Calculate Interest on Workers’ Compensation?

A few days ago the… Supreme Court of the City of Buenos Aires It overturned the decision of Chamber IV of the State Board of Appeal and established the method to be used to calculate interest on compensation for the occupational risk system. The statement reorients the focus of the legal discussion around the topic Indexing banthe scope of DNU 669/2019 and the way in which the right to property and full redress must be protected in contexts of prolonged non-compliance.

The case arose from a lawsuit brought by an employee whose first defamatory statement was made in July 2015. The Chamber had ordered that the level of the rate should be updated based on the INDEC Consumer Price Index (CPI) – excluding the RIPTE method in the period when the organization did not publish the indicator – and also applied a pure interest rate of 3% per annum. To decide in this sense, it declared the unconstitutionality of Article 7 of Law 23,928, which prohibits currency update mechanisms.

The central point of the TSJ ruling is to determine the correct method for calculating late payment interest on compensation under Law 24.557. The issue becomes relevant because in the context of inflation, the way interest is calculated can significantly change the final amount.

For the majority of the Court, the applicable legal system was established by DNU 669/2019, which amended Article 12 of the Occupational Risk Law. This rule stipulates that from the first rebuttal statement until the moment compensation is provided, the amount of the basic income accrues “interest equal to the rate of change of the RIPTE index”.

The decree specifically added that the new method should be applied even if the emergency had already occurred before it came into force. With this provision, the executive wanted to unify the judicial criteria and prevent late payments from giving rise to different results between workers or insurers, since each court had applied different rates.

The TSJ returned to what was decided in the previous case “Provincia ART v. Boulanger”, where it had already determined how the interest derived from the change in the RIPTE should be calculated. According to this teaching, the method must be applied in a simple percentage way: (RIPTE at time of payment / RIPTE at time of first disabling manifestation) − 1 × 100

Thus, it is not a capitalization or a composite system, but rather a linear update based on the accumulated variation of the salary index used by law.