Sovereign Debt

Puerto Rico: Legislative Update

04/18/16

It appears that the House legislation has bogged down.  Two or three issues keep coming up, none of which make a whole lot of sense:

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Puerto Rico Restructuring Options That Don't Rely on Congress

04/15/16

The revised draft PROMESA bill (available here) is now under debate in Congress. The bill appears to respond to some early criticisms, although its length and complexity obscures answers to some important questions. Under the circumstances, it seems sensible for the Commonwealth to consider all of its options, including those that do not require Congressional action.

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Puerto Rico: PROMESA draft bill, title III revised

04/14/16

I again offer some initial thoughts on the revised draft bill, now subject to much debate in Congress:

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Puerto Rico: The Commonwealth Plays Hardball

04/06/16

The question is whether it is playing against the House of Representatives, and its heavy handed PROMESA draft bill, or its creditors.

In any event, according to the Financial Times, Puerto Rico's legislature has passed a law giving its governor "the power to declare a state of emergency and halt payments to creditors until January 2017."

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Puerto Rico: PROMESA draft bill, title III (initial thoughts)

04/04/16

Some quick thoughts on the "bankruptcy" part of the proposed bill:

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Lessons for Puerto Rico from ... Arkansas?

03/24/16

I did not realize that a US state had defaulted on its bonds, offering a historical comparative example of the difficulties facing Puerto Rico, its creditors, and mostly its citizens if the mess there is not subjected to an orderly, judicially supervised debt cleanup process of some kind. In a new working paper from the Cleveland Fed, O.

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Puerto Rico: Further Supreme Court Thoughts

03/23/16

So Noah Feldman has a column up on Bloomberg that suggests that section 903(1) of the Code should clearly apply to the Commonwealth. It's a sensible argument, if you read that section entirely in isolation and know nothing about the overall structure of the Bankruptcy Code.

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