United States

A U.S. judge held Argentina in contempt of court on Monday, saying the republic was trying to find ways to circumvent a prior order requiring it pay holdout bondholders at the same time as other creditors who restructured their debt in recent years, Reuters reported. U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa in Manhattan deferred a decision on imposing sanctions against Argentina to a later date. But he did say that the "problem is that the republic of Argentina has been and is now taking steps in an attempt to evade critical parts of" his injunction.

In its latest attempt to circumvent US courts, Argentina will seek to pay nearly $200m due on its restructured bonds by disbursing the money to investors next week via a local bank instead of Bank of New York Mellon, its trustee, the Financial Times reported. In response, holders of the country’s defaulted bonds have asked US District Judge Thomas Griesa to find the nation in contempt of court and fine it $50,000 for seeking to evade legal rulings that require Argentina to pay them in full if it also services its restructured debt.

Argentina is holding a gun to the head of Citigroup, a lawyer for the bank told a three-judge panel in Manhattan on Thursday, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. The bank has found itself in an awkward position: It must decide between defying a New York court order or a sovereign government, a move that it says would result in “grave sanctions” from Argentina. “We’re going to obey, and if we obey, we have a gun to our head and the gun will probably go off,” Karen Wagner, a lawyer representing Citigroup, said.

An application by property developer Sean Dunne to end his US bankruptcy case will be heard by a Connecticut judge at trial in December, the Irish Times reported. Judge Alan Shiff set the trial date for December 3rd in a court filing yesterday. He had previous given parties until today to file objections to Mr Dunne’s bid not to seek a discharge from bankruptcy in the US in favour of proceeding with a single bankruptcy case in Ireland.

An Italian court has upheld a ruling by a U.S. court for Italy's Parmalat to pay Citibank $431 million in damages in a case relating to the dairy group's bankruptcy more than 10 years ago, lawyers for the U.S. bank said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Parmalat collapsed in 2003 after the discovery of a 14 billion euro ($18 billion) hole in its accounts. At the time it was Europe's biggest bankruptcy and its demise wiped out the savings of more than 100,000 small investors.

Small base metals miner Mercator Minerals Ltd said on Tuesday it had filed for protection from its creditors in Canada and the United States, and the Toronto Stock Exchange suspended trading of its shares and began a delisting review, Reuters reported. The Vancouver-based company, which was hurt by a 2013 drop in copper and molybdenum prices and problems at its Mineral Park copper mine in Arizona, warned last week that it could be forced to file for creditor protection.

Argentina's default three weeks ago, and the ongoing legal battle that led up to it, raises practical, theoretical, and moral questions about the ad hoc process that ensues when a country doesn't repay its creditors, Foreign Policy reported. "We're at a moment where a lot of people have been stopped short and are asking: Is this really the way we want restructurings to go forward?" asked Mark Weidemaier, a sovereign-bond expert at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Bust developer Sean Dunne is seeking to withdraw his application for bankruptcy protection in the US, Independent.ie reported. The dramatic and unexpected development came as the businessman claimed he no longer had the resources to fight efforts by NAMA to stop him emerging from the process debt free. Last year Dunne filed for bankruptcy in Connecticut, where he has lived since 2010, as creditors owed a total of €695m began to circle. However, Ulster Bank later moved to make Dunne bankrupt in Ireland and an unprecedented dual bankruptcy process has been taking place ever since.

A federal court judge said on Thursday that Argentina’s attempt to skirt one of his rulings was “lawless” but stopped short of finding the country in contempt of court, the International New York Times reported. Exasperated lawyers for a group of New York hedge funds that are seeking more than $1.5 billion in bond payments that Argentina has refused to pay pleaded with the judge to take a harsher stance. In a heated moment, one of the lawyers, Robert A.

Argentina will send a bill to Congress to authorize the payment of foreign debt in local accounts in a bid to skirt a U.S. court ruling that is blocking payments and caused the nation to default on July 30, Bloomberg News reported. Argentina will seek to remove trustee Bank of New York Mellon Corp. and deposit funds for foreign bondholders at an account at the central bank, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said in a nationwide address.