This was partly because the devaluation of the Argentine currency had an extremely adverse effect on the conditions under which electricity companies (and other public utilities) operated in the country,6 but also because it coincided with an exhaustion of the easiest privatization possibilities and a global financial crisis. In that period concession contracts on privatized utilities (including electricity firms) set their rates in dollars, indexed to prices in the United States. With the breakdown of this parity, the government set rates in pesos and eliminated indexation as a way of controlling inflation. The electricity firms considered this a breach of contract, and most of them appealed the decision in international tribunals.