Venezuela, and its state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela SA, have stopped making payments on a lot of their debts. Many of these debts are in the form of bonds governed by New York law, and so bondholders have sued Venezuela in U.S. courts asking for their money back, a Bloomberg View reported. This is not, in sovereign debt cases, a foolproof approach: The court can tell Venezuela to give them their money back, but it can’t make Venezuela do it; Venezuela is its own country and doesn’t have to listen to U.S. courts.

A Brazilian appeals court judge has allowed bank creditors of Odebrecht SA to take possession of shares in petrochemical company Braskem SA pledged as collateral for loans they made to the corruption-ensnared conglomerate, according to a document seen by Reuters. The new injunction, granted on Wednesday in favor of Brazil’s largest lender, Itau Unibanco Holding SA, overturns a ruling banning any sale or possession of Braskem shares by banks, Reuters reported. State-controlled lender Banco do Brasil has filed a similar request.

Creditors holding Venezuelan debt on Tuesday pushed back on debt restructuring plans backed by opposition leader Juan Guaido, urging a “fair and effective” framework for talks and improved communications with investors holding defaulted bonds, Bloomberg News reported. Creditors holding Venezuelan debt on Tuesday pushed back on debt restructuring plans backed by opposition leader Juan Guaido, urging a “fair and effective” framework for talks and improved communications with investors holding defaulted bonds.

The perceived risk of Latin America’s largest economy has dropped to a five-year low as President Jair Bolsonaro’s proposed overhaul of the country’s pension system nears a key vote in Congress, Bloomberg News reported. The cost to insure Brazil’s debt against default for five years narrowed to as low as 138 basis points over comparable U.S. Treasuries Tuesday morning, the tightest since September 2014, three months before the onset of a crushing two-year recession in the country.

Venezuela’s opposition plans to treat equally creditors ensnared in the country’s $150bn web of defaulted debt if President Nicolás Maduro is removed — after weeding out inflated, fraudulent, or corrupt claims, the Financial Times reported. In a new policy paper, advisers to US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaidó sketch out how his administration would go about restructuring Venezuela’s huge and varied stock of debt, which includes unpaid supplier invoices, expropriation claims and defaulted bonds, among other instruments.

Brazil’s state-controlled bank Caixa Economica Federal SA is challenging a decision by corruption-ensnared conglomerate Odebrecht SA to include one of its units’ foreign bondholders in its bankruptcy protection filing, according to a document filed in the court case, Reuters reported. Among the 21 Odebrecht affiliates that filed for the bankruptcy proceeding two weeks ago was Odebrecht Finance, the issuer of $3 billion in bonds guaranteed by the group’s construction unit OEC.

Brazilian bank Itaú Unibanco Holding SA is questioning a decision by the judge in charge of Odebrecht bankruptcy related to a stake owned by the conglomerate in petrochemical producer Braskem SA, Brazilian newspaper Valor Economico reported on Tuesday. Itaú has not formally challenged the judge decision, but just asked the judge to reconsider it, Valor said, citing people with knowledge of the matter, Reuters reported. Odebrecht and Itau did not immediately reply to requests for comment. The case is under seal and not publicly available.

Brazil’s antitrust regulator wants new rules for allocating airplane landing and departure rights, known as slots, in Sao Paulo’s crowded domestic airport, saying they are too concentrated among two main airlines, Reuters reported. The recommendation comes as the country’s civil aviation regulator ANAC has announced it will take back the slots held by grounded airline Avianca Brasil in the airport, known as Congonhas, as part of a plan to redistribute them later.

Several insurers have reportedly begun taking action to avoid potential losses from the bankruptcy protection process for the holding company (ODB) of Brazilian construction conglomerate Odebrecht, BNamericas reported. Earlier in the week, ODB and 21 of its subsidiaries filed the bankruptcy protection request with 98.5bn reais (US$25.2bn) in debt. The request was accepted by a local court and became the country’s largest bankruptcy protection proceeding ever, surpassing Brazilian telecom operator Oi, which filed a request in 2016 with a debt pile of more than 64bn reais.

What good is it to throw a man ten feet of rope if he is drowning in 20 feet of water?” asked Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist of the IMF, in this newspaper 15 years ago. His question still bothers the institution he used to advise. Last June the fund uncoiled its biggest-ever loan: $50bn for Argentina. Four months later it added $6bn more. It hoped its generosity would rescue Argentina and salvage its reputation in a country that regards it as complicit in the economic disasters of 2001-02. But a year later, Argentina’s economy is still far from safety. Will more rope be needed?