(Bloomberg) -- The Argentine government’s plan to take over bankrupt soybean processor Vicentin SAIC suffered a setback after a judge ruled the company’s management should continue to run the business for now.

Judge Fabian Lorenzini in Santa Fe province reinstated Vicentin executives to their positions and said government officials who’d seized the company by decree should step aside to perform a supervisory role.

President Alberto Fernandez said on Saturday that expropriation remains an option for the government, though it will continue to evaluate other options that allow it to take over the running of Vicentin and prevent it from closing.

“Our aim is for the state to have a majority stake and take control of the company,” Fernandez told a local radio station, according to La Nacion newspaper. “We’re not infringing upon private property, we’re rescuing a bankrupt company.”

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Marches against the expropriation plan took place in dozens of cities on Saturday. Demonstrators banged pots in protest while many waved the blue-and-white national flag, according to local media.

A caravan of tractors drove along highways in Avellanada, Santa Fe province where Vicentin is based while protesters marched to the Plaza de Mayo square in Buenos Aires in front of the government palace.

Lorenzini has been overseeing Vicentin’s bankruptcy, which includes resolving about $1.4 billion in debt. His ruling represents a victory -- at least a temporary one -- for critics of the government who said it couldn’t seize control of a company that’s in the hands of the courts.

The critics said a June 9 decree -- which involved taking over Vicentin for 60 days while Fernandez mulls an expropriation bill and other options to rescue the grains trader -- was an overreach of the executive branch into judicial matters.

Vicentin is Argentina’s biggest exporter of soy meal for animal feed and soy cooking oil. Argentina is the world’s chief supplier of those products.

(Updates with street protests in fifth paragraph)

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