Struggling to staunch a run on the peso that has helped drive the economy to the brink of recession, Argentina is aggressively pushing investors out of some of the local debt notes they hold, Bloomberg News reported. It is a risky gambit -- the opposite of the kind of measure a country would typically take at a moment of great financial duress.

It’s pay day for $1.125 billion of Venezuelan sovereign bonds. But no one is expecting to get any money. After all, the bond in question is already in default due to a missed interest payment back in February, Bloomberg News reported. Why would Nicolas Maduro’s government fork over hundreds of millions of dollars it can’t afford to part with when the nation and its flagship oil company are already about $5 billion in the hole with creditors? The one new thing today is that this missed payment will mark the first default on government bond principal, rather than just interest payments.

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the former president of Argentina, on Monday sought to paint herself as the victim of a conspiracy in the face of bribery allegations that have unsettled markets and led to comparisons with the corruption inquiry that has shaken Brazil, the Financial Times reported. Ms Fernández de Kirchner called for the case to be abandoned in written testimony on the first day of her trial, and took to Twitter to denounce what she claimed was a conspiracy between Mauricio Macri, her successor, his media allies and Claudio Bonadio, the presiding judge.

The corruption scandal that broke in Argentina last week could be a political godsend for President Mauricio Macri -- and an economic nightmare for the country. A federal judge is probing hundreds of alleged bribes paid by construction companies, energy suppliers and electricity generators to members of the former government of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Bloomberg News reported. While the accusations may derail Fernandez’s hopes of a comeback, aiding Macri, they could also halt investment in a country already threatened with recession after a collapse in the peso.

Argentine companies will sell at least $5 billion of overseas bonds by March, reopening a window that has been closed for the past three months amid economic volatility, according to the head of Itau Unibanco Holding SA’s international fixed-income unit, Bloomberg News reported. Between $3 billion and $4 billion will be sold by a group of firms recently awarded public-private contracts to build roads, while the remainder will come from blue-chip companies, according to Baruc Saez.

Speculation about consolidation is a staple in Brazil’s highly competitive, fast-growing telecom sector. Now, conditions may be ripe for action. NII Holdings Inc. has skyrocketed this year in New York trading, signaling that investors are stepping up their M&A bets as two favorite targets finish actions that could pave the way for deals, Bloomberg News reported. Nextel Telecomunicacoes Ltda., NII’s Brazilian unit, concluded a debt restructuring and is in better shape to be acquired as the country slowly exits a long recession.

The construction unit of Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht SA is seeking to win $18 billion in engineering contracts in the next two years and could partner with a strategic foreign investor, the unit’s chief executive, Fabio Januário, told Reuters. Januário said a foreign partner could help to reduce dependence on Brazil’s oil and gas sector, whose fortunes have swung sharply over the past decade with the price of crude oil, Reuters reported. “We are open to partners but it has to be someone who gives us that,” Januário said during an interview on Friday.

Oi SA, Brazil’s largest fixed line telecom firm, called a general shareholders’ meeting on Sept. 3 in Rio de Janeiro to formally vote on a 4 billion reais ($1.07 billion) capital injection, the company said, Reuters reported. In a securities filing made late on Wednesday night, the firm said shareholders would also consider the composition of a new board of directors and a number of by-law changes, confirming a Reuters report earlier in the day which said Oi would send the invite for the meeting as early as this week.

Oi SA, Brazil’s largest fixed-line telecom firm, is about to formally call for a general shareholders’ meeting, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters, as the company pushes ahead with its aggressive restructuring plan. According to the source, who requested anonymity to discuss the matter before the announcement, the firm plans to file a formal invite for the meeting to officially approve a 4 billion reais ($1.07 billion) capital injection into the firm this week or next, Reuters reported.

In a related story, Reuters reported that Brazilian telephone carrier Oi SA said on Wednesday that a judge in Lisbon had decided against validating the company’s restructuring plan in Portugal for now, adding that the decision will not keep the plan from going into effect. In a securities filing, Oi said a judge determined that there are outstanding appeals related to the firm’s restructuring of 65 billion reais ($17.4 billion) in debt that must be resolved before the Portuguese court signs off on the plan.