Juan José Aranguren is an Argentine businessman. He was Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell of Argentina for fifteen years and served as Minister of Energy during the

Mauricio Macri Mauricio Macri (; born 8 February 1959) is an Argentine businessman and politician who served as the President of Argentina from 2015 to 2019. He has been the leader of the Republican Proposal (PRO) party since its founding in 2005. He previo ...

's administration.

Biography

Aranguren was born in the

Entre Ríos Province Entre Ríos (, "Between Rivers") is a central province of Argentina, located in the Mesopotamia region. It borders the provinces of Buenos Aires (south), Corrientes (north) and Santa Fe (west), and Uruguay in the east. Its capital is Paraná ( ...

, and became a

chemical engineer In the field of engineering, a chemical engineer is a professional, equipped with the knowledge of chemical engineering, who works principally in the chemical industry to convert basic raw materials into a variety of products and deals with the ...

at the

University of Buenos Aires The University of Buenos Aires ( es, Universidad de Buenos Aires, UBA) is a public university, public research university in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Established in 1821, it is the premier institution of higher learning in the country and one o ...

Royal Dutch Shell

He joined Shell Argentina in 1979, and became a director from 1997 to 2015. He opposed the administration of president Nestor and

Cristina Kirchner Cristina is a female given name, and it is also a surname. Notable people with the name include: Given name *Cristina (daughter of Edward the Exile), 11th-century English princess *Cristina (singer), Cristina Monet-Palaci (1956–2020), American s ...

and won several cases against the state for the state-controlled prices.

Minister of Energy

He was appointed Minister of Energy by

in 2015. Aranguren arranged the removal of state subsidies to

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...

gas Gas is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, liquid, and plasma). A pure gas may be made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon), elemental molecules made from one type of atom (e.g. oxygen), or ...

, and

water Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...

distribution, which caused a huge increase in the taxes for those services. Those increases were met by protests in numerous cities by people bearing banners, bugles, and noise-making ''

cacerolazo A cacerolazo ( or ), cacerolada (, ) or casserole is a form of popular protest which consists of a group of people making noise by banging pots, pans, and other utensils in order to call for attention. The first documented protests of this styl ...

s''. The government justified it as a required step to reduce the huge fiscal deficit, and pointed that the subsidy system had almost ruined the whole energy distribution system. Macri explained this at the State of the State report, and Aranguren at an audience at the

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of a ...

. Several courts nulled the tax increase, as it had been ordered with a previous audience with customers to explain it, as required by law. The

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

ratified the temporary halt to the tax increase, but only for residential customers. The customer audiences were celebrated in September.

Controversies

Conflict of interest

Although he resigned to Shell to work as a minister of Energy, he still kept shares for $16.3 million from the company. There was a controversy over it, as some of his rulings benefited Shell, and he may have had a

conflict of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations i ...

in it. Aranguren considered that there was no conflict of interest, but sold his shares anyway, as suggested by the anticorruption office. He considered that government transparency had to clear for the Argentine society.

Paradise Papers

On 5 November 2017, the

Paradise Papers The Paradise Papers are a set of over 13.4 million confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investments that were leaked to the German reporters Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer, from the newspaper'' Süddeutsch ...

, a set of confidential

electronic document An electronic document is any electronic media content (other than computer programs or system files) that is intended to be used in either an electronic form or as printed output. Originally, any computer data were considered as something inter ...

s relating to

offshore investment Offshore investment is the keeping of money in a jurisdiction other than one's country of residence. Offshore jurisdictions are used to pay less tax in many countries by large and small-scale investors. Poorly regulated offshore domiciles have ser ...

, revealed that Aranguren have managed two

offshore companies The term "offshore company" or “offshore corporation” is used in at least two distinct and different ways. An offshore company may be a reference to: * a company, group or sometimes a division thereof, which engages in offshoring business pr ...

, Shell Western Supply and Trading Limited and Sol Antilles y Guianas Limited, both subsidiaries of

Royal Dutch Shell Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yo ...

. One is the main bidder for the purchase of diesel oil by the current government through the state owned CAMMESA (Compañía Administradora del Mercado Mayorista Eléctrico).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aranguren, Juan Jose Ministers of energy of Argentina Argentine business executives University of Buenos Aires alumni Argentine people of Basque descent Living people 1954 births Argentine anti-communists