News Topic: Sovereign Debt

How's that for a catchy title? I was inspired by an interesting post over at Lawfare , where the author notes that the term "assassination" has a specialized meaning in legal circles – namely, it involves an unlawful killing – whereas in ... Read full article

Until a month or so ago, you could have asked almost any economist or political scientist whether sovereign borrowers worry about legal enforcement, and, by way of answer, you would gotten a technical version of "Huh?" Academics disagree about ... Read full article

Lots of activity in the pari passu litigation: The lawyers for the exchange bondholders have been working overtime, filing an emergency motion to stay Judge Griesa's injunction (just granted  here !) and asking the Second Circuit to let them ... Read full article

In the Argentine appeal ? This weekend I found myself reading an 1829 edition of  American Jurist and Law Magazine (it's a long story, but says much about my social life), and came across the following: ... Read full article

Laugh, cry, give up: the Financial Times editorial argues for Supreme Court review of Judge Griesa's decision because not enough countries use collective act ... Read full article

Anna Gelpern has already posted on the pari passu wipeout of Argentina. As she noted, NML got pretty much everything it wanted. By contrast, the exchange bondholders got no love whatsoever. The district judge dismissed their argument that it was unfair ... Read full article

Christmas came early to Elliottville . Judge Griesa issued an amended order and two opinions that shoo away just about all the arguments that Argentina, the exchange bondholders, the various intermediaries and fellow travelers tried to fling in the way of ... Read full article

Last Friday was the filing deadline set by (a rather irked ) Judge Griesa for Argentina and interested third parties in that country's long-running battle with NML and other restructuring holdouts. ... Read full article

There is a widely-held view that sovereign bonds don't contain the optimal terms but are slow to incorporate better ones. Right or wrong, that view has prompted many government-sponsored initiatives to reform bond contracts, such as the current plan ... Read full article

It was supposed to be a scheduling hearing, and I was supposed to be in New York for a conference . So I popped by Judge Griesa's courtroom on Friday to see about next steps in NML v. Argentina , and stumbled into a rave. ... Read full article

In my last post , I said that the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit had interpreted the pari passu clause in Argentina's bonds as a promise to forego a century's worth of restructuring practices. The district judge still needs to ... Read full article

"[T]he principal beneficiaries of the litigation were an unscrupulous body of commercial pirates, who had purchased ... bonds at a mere nominal price..." ... Read full article

Thanks very much to Credit Slips for inviting me to guest blog. I know that many readers of this blog have been following the pari passu saga unfolding in the Second Circuit . ... Read full article

The Friday decision in NML et al. v. Argentina has clearly shaken the sovereign universe . ... Read full article

The pointy-head caucus can exhale -- the Second Circuit ruled on the pari passu drama , and it did not go as I had expected. ... Read full article

Whaddayaknow -- the Ghanaian commercial court upheld the detention of the Argentine tall ship  at the request of the defaulted bond holders. ... Read full article

A court in Ghana has  "detained" an  Argentine navy ship with over 200 sailors on board , as part of the continuing effo ... Read full article

For those of you who read my Dealbook column last month, Alphaville provides an update . ... Read full article