Background
Bonds that are traded via clearing houses, such as Euroclear and Clearstream, often contain terms providing that there will be a trustee for the issue, who may be appointed by the participants in the relevant clearing system or by the beneficial owners.
Quite often, the terms of the bonds will contain so-called “no-action clauses”, pursuant to which the trustee may be accorded certain rights and powers to take action on behalf, and instead, of the beneficial bondholders.
A bondholder of Argentine restructured debt filed for an injunction before the Argentine courts against the Bank of New York Mellon, as trustee under the exchange bonds. The plaintiff claimed the distribution of funds – frozen by a US court order – that Argentina had deposited into the Bank of New York Mellon's account to comply with the payments under those bonds. The Argentine courts dismissed the request, concluding that they lacked jurisdiction.
The Republic of Argentina returned to global debt markets after a 15-year absence on April 19, 2016, when it sold $16 billion in bonds to fund a series of landmark settlements reached earlier this year with holdout bondholders from the South American nation’s 2005 and 2010 debt restructurings. This latest development in the more than decade-long battle between Argentina and the holdouts—led by hedge funds Aurelius Capital Master Ltd. (“Aurelius”) and NML Capital Ltd.
Argentina—The long-running dispute over the payment of Argentina’s sovereign debt has been particularly active in recent weeks and months.
Events Leading Up to Argentina's Default
NML Capital Ltd. (NML), a hedge fund affiliated with Paul Singer’s Elliott Management Corp. (Elliott), won two favorable rulings from the Supreme Court of the United States (the Court) on Monday, June 16, related to its, now, decade long litigation with the Republic of Argentina over the country’s 2001 default on $100 billion of its debt. The Argentinian bonds were restructured in 2005 and again in 2010, and most bondholders swapped their defaulted bonds out for new, less favorable securities.
Recent Developments
In what the Financial Times has called “the sovereign debt restructuring case of the century,” Argentina has timely submitted its proposal as requested by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, with which it is willing to make payments on approximately $1.3 billion of unpaid debt obligations that stem from the country’s $95 billion debt default of December 2001.
Recent Developments
On June 24, 2013, Argentina filed a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a ruling handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on October 26, 2012 (see NML Capital, Ltd. v. Republic of Argentina, 699 F.3d 246 (2d Cir. 2012)) upholding a lower-court order enjoining Argentina from making payments on restructured defaulted debt without making comparable payments to holdout bondholders. On July 26, 2013, the French government filed an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief supporting Argentina’s petition.
Recent Developments