CreditSlips

Do Judgements Trump CACs?

02/10/20

(Thanks to Steven Bodzin of REDD Intelligence for flagging this matter; he has an aptly titled piece on this out today “Venezuela Bondholders Seek Judgement Ahead of Collective Action Clause Activation”).

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216 Jamaica Avenue and the Prospect of Breathing Life Into Antique Chinese Bonds

02/09/20

One of the more fun discussions we have had in my international debt class this term has been the question of whether a clever plaintiff's lawyer might be able to breathe life into defaulted Chinese bonds from the period 1911-1948. (Our thanks to Tracy Alloway's delightful piece in Bloomberg on this matter (here)).

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Daniel Schwarcz on the Evolution of Insurance Contracts

02/07/20

I shudder even as I write these words, but I’m increasingly fascinated by insurance contracts.  If you are interested in the processes by which standard form contracts evolve – which I am -- then you can’t help but be sucked into this world. Coming from the world of sovereign bonds, the insurance world strikes as bizarre.

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The Bajan Debt Restructuring - 2018-19

02/06/20

Following in the footsteps of their mammoth restructuring of Greek Debt in March 2012, Andrew Shutter, Jim Ho, Lee Buchheit, and their team utilized the same "local law advantage" to design the restructuring of the Bajan debt in 2018-19.  Andrew, one of the gurus of the sovereign debt field, has just put up a super paper on this (here). The paper describes not only how the restructuring was engineered, but also the ways in which the strategy utilized was different from that used for Greece.

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Elliott Rocks (Strikes?) Again

02/06/20

Holdout hero Elliott Management, the king of holding out until it gets what it wants, scored itself a nice Christmas bonus. The hedge fund won a long game of chicken with Ireland’s government over junior bonds issued by Anglo Irish Bank by getting its money back in full.

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The "Necessity" Defense in Sovereign Debt Cases

01/29/20

My international debt class this week discussed the US Supreme Court’s gold clause decisions from 1935; and, in particular, US v. Perry. This is one of my favorite topics, in part because the events that occurred are so surprising to most students (as they were to me).

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Argentina’s Hundred-Year Bond and its Make-Whole Premium: A Spanner in the Works?

01/26/20

Argentina is on the brink of attempting a restructuring of its sovereign debt.  And, of course, that has attracted the birds of prey.  An article in Bloomberg a couple of days ago (here) reported that potential holdout creditors had hired expert lawyers to examine the fine print in Argentine contracts in the hope of finding a vehicle to support their litigation strategies.

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Mick Mulvaney's South Carolina Land Shenanigans All Under Seal

01/22/20

Last year the Washington Post covered Mick Mulvaney's South Carolina land deal gone sour. It was a pretty amazing case that is fantastic for teaching purposes. Mick's moves would have made some of the most sophisticated distressed debt funds (not to mention a real estate developer president) blush with shame (or green with envy).

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Buybacks as a Sovereign Debt Restructuring Strategy: Why the Disfavor?

01/19/20

The ideas in this post are drawn from work with Stephen Choi.  Errors are mine.

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