Argentina's President Mauricio Macri said on Thursday he would annul an agreement his government reached to resolve a 15-year-old debt the country's postal service incurred when it was owned by Macri's father, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Macri spoke after a federal prosecutor asked a judge to open an investigation into him and Communications Minister Oscar Aguad earlier this week.

A prosecutor asked to investigate Argentine President Mauricio Macri on Tuesday over a deal to resolve debt the country's postal service incurred with the government when it was owned by Macri's father, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. A judge will decide whether or not to open an investigation, which could hurt center-right Macri's party in congressional elections later this year. Earlier on Tuesday, Cabinet Chief Marcos Peña asked for an independent audit of the deal to resolve the debt and denied any wrongdoing by Macri's government.

Changes in Brazil's telecom law currently under debate in the Senate are not being taken into account by debt-laden carrier Oi SA as it devises its in-court reorganization plan, Oi Chief Executive Marcos Schroeder said on Tuesday. Speaking at an industry event in Brasília, Schroeder said the imminent reforms will have no economic effect on the company's reorganization in bankruptcy court, Reuters reported. The bill had been scheduled to become law last December but was held up in the Senate after opposition legislators filed a motion to submit it to a vote by the full house.

Arturo Méndez heaved a sigh of relief after slapping about $300,000 in hundred dollar bills on the table to pay for a house. Carrying all that cash around the streets of Buenos Aires was now someone else’s problem. “Why couldn’t I have just got a mortgage like in any normal country?” asks Mr Méndez rhetorically — well aware that affordable mortgages scarcely exist in Argentina thanks to its chronically volatile economy. As a result, most are obliged to pay for their homes upfront, and often in dollars because of the historic instability of the peso, the Financial Times reported.

The recent bump in oil prices isn’t enough to help Petroleos de Venezuela SA as it faces its fourth consecutive year of declining production, Bloomberg News reported. The company’s crude output is expected to fall this year as it failed to raise cash for investments and after Venezuela agreed to cut 95,000 barrels a day for six months as part of a deal struck by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and other non-members to lift oil prices, analysts say.

Traders reduced their bets on a default of Venezuela’s dollar debt over the next year amid a thin repayment schedule in the first quarter, Bloomberg News reported. The implied probability of nonpayment over the next 12 months plunged to 44 percent in January from 59 percent at the end of December, according to credit-default swaps data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s the first time the risk of default has been below 50 percent since September. The longer-term outlook is still a little murky, with the odds of a credit event over the next five years at 89 percent.

Brazilian politicians inflated growth estimates to facilitate an agreement between the federal government and Rio de Janeiro to resolve the state’s financial crisis, raising doubts over the viability of the deal. The projections, even if proven true, would still leave the state running a deficit by 2021, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly, Bloomberg News reported. The deal was crucial as it sets a precedent for other states in financial difficulties.

Brazil plans to overhaul its bankruptcy law to help troubled companies survive a two-year recession that has led a record number of them to suspend debt payments, a senior member of the government's economic team said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. President Michel Temer also plans to announce new measures next week to increase productivity and bolster the construction sector, said the official, who requested anonymity to speak freely.

The fuel subsidies Latin American governments have used for decades to spread the bounty of natural resources are fading as the region’s largest economies shift toward market-driven policies, deepening public ire in difficult economic times, The Wall Street Journal reported. Mexico jacked up fuel prices by as much as 20% on Jan. 1 as part of an ambitious effort begun in 2013 to liberalize its oil industry.

The largest shareholder in Oi SA will oppose any alternate reorganization plan that does not come from within the debt-laden Brazilian phone carrier, which is struggling to emerge from bankruptcy protection. In a statement sent to Reuters on Friday, Portugal's Pharol SGPS SA said it will only endorse alternatives to Oi's original reorganization proposal if the carrier's board approves changes. The statement specifically referred to a proposal made by billionaire Paul Singer's Elliott Management Corp this week.