Argentina's new government is shopping around for a second law firm to help resolve the country's longstanding battle with creditors suing it over its unpaid debt, Reuters reported yesterday. The center-right government of Mauricio Macri will publicly launch its search otoday for a new firm based in New York City to work together with Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP. Argentina and the so-called "holdout" bondholders plan to meet in the second week of January to start talks toward settling the legal dispute that stems from the country's $100 billion default in 2002.

Brazil’s government accounts remained weak in November, with a budget deficit equal to 9.3 percent of gross domestic product, the country's central bank said today, according to the Wall Street Journal. The result is slightly improved from October’s 9.5 percent-of-GDP budget gap. Brazil’s gross debt was 65.1 percent of GDP, versus 64.9 percent of GDP in October, revised down from 66.1 percent, the central bank said.

Mauricio Macri clinched Argentina’s presidency last month by tapping into voters’ fatigue with a leftist political movement that had governed for more than 12 years, the New York Times reported today. But just three weeks into his four-year term, Macri’s sweeping economic changes are roiling Argentina, accentuating the divide he wanted to bridge. Macri’s government devalued the peso by nearly 30 percent in mid-December, to more than 13 pesos to the dollar from 9.8; it later strengthened slightly.

A U.S. court-appointed mediator said that Argentina's new government and holdout bondholders are to meet in the second week of January to start "substantive" talks toward settling a more than decade-old sovereign debt dispute, Reuters reported yesterday. The talks would mark a major breakthrough in the dispute, which has caused Argentina to be shut out of the international capital markets and encouraged the prior governments of both Cristina Fernandez and Nestor Kirchner to adopt unorthodox economic policies.

Argentina’s peso lost more than a quarter of its value against the U.S. dollar Thursday, a day after the new government of President Mauricio Macri said it would lift currency controls to attract investors and kick-start the economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. Within minutes of trading, the peso weakened to 13.9 per dollar from 9.8 the previous day, its biggest percentage decline since January 2002, following the abandonment of the peso-dollar parity.

Argentina’s new government on Wednesday lifted currency controls, allowing its citizens to buy dollars freely for the first time in four years and setting the stage for a sharp depreciation of the peso, The Wall Street Journal reported. The move, which officials hope will kick-start the faltering economy, is the strongest President Mauricio Macri has yet made in his bid to roll back the government interference that marked the country’s economy under the previous presidencies of Néstor and Cristina Kirchner.

Fitch Ratings cut Brazil’s sovereign-credit rating to junk status on Wednesday, citing the country’s ballooning budget deficit, political turmoil and a deeper-than-expected recession, The Wall Street Journal reported. The decision deals a fresh blow to President Dilma Rousseff as she struggles to revive the economy and avoid impeachment. Fitch becomes the second major credit-rating firm to downgrade Brazil to junk, a move that could trigger a selloff of Brazilian financial assets and make it more expensive for the government to borrow.

Ecuador repaid $650 million of its foreign debt due Tuesday, marking the first time in the South American nation’s more than 180-year history that it’s repaid global bonds on time, even as a collapse in the OPEC country’s crude prices saps liquidity needed to keep the government operating normally, Bloomberg News reported. President Rafael Correa, who led the nation’s default on $3.2 billion of overseas debt seven years ago, said on his Twitter account Tuesday that the government would also meet public workers’ December salary payments without problems.

Brazil sugar and ethanol producer Tonon Bioenergia SA, which operates three mills with a total capacity to process 8.2 million tonnes of cane per year, has sought court protection against creditors, the company said late on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Tonon said its debt, largely denominated in dollars, soared following the recent weakening of Brazil's currency. The sugar group's debt in Brazilian reais jumped by 69 percent by the end of September to 2.66 billion ($707 million) compared to the same time a year earlier.

Brazil’s woes deepened on Wednesday as Moody’s Investors Service downgraded all ratings for embattled oil group Petrobras, and the country faced the threat of losing its investment grade credit rating from the agency, the Financial Times reported. Moody’s downgraded all ratings for Petrobras to Ba3 from Ba2, and placed them on review for possible further downgrade. “These rating actions reflect Petrobras’ elevated refinancing risks in the face of deteriorating industry conditions that make it more difficult to raise cash through asset sales,” the agency said.