Argentina Announces a New Debt Swap Outside US Law

[Zorro]

Argentina's president revealed Monday night how she'll try to defy U.S. courts that have ruled against her government in a decade-long, billion-dollar legal fight over debts that have been unpaid since the country's world-record, $100 billion default.

Rather than comply with Friday's unanimous ruling ordering her government to pay $1.4 billion in cash to a group of plaintiffs she calls "vulture funds," President Cristina Fernandez is proposing another debt swap: offering new bonds to be paid in dollars in Buenos Aires to anyone still holding defaulted debt.

Fernandez made the announcement in a surprise address to the nation, saying the U.S. federal appellate judges were unfair to label Argentina a deadbeat. She said Argentina has made $173 billion in debt payments since 2003 and will pay $2 billion more on Sept. 12.

"Rather than 'recalcitrant debtors,' we are serial payers," she said.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/argentina-announces-debt-swap-us-law-20076708

[COLGATE4]

1. Anything except pay the monies they borrowed

(and still owe). But this isn't going to fly. The NY court can enforce this against Argentine assets in the US if necessary.

[puchi]

2. vulture4...

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/08/201382871453651736.html

[COLGATE4]

3. All those entities that exchanged money for bonds from

the Argentine Government (and did so in good faith with the expectation that the bonds would be repaid in accordance with their stated terms) are now nothing more than 'vultures'. How dare anyone expect the Argentine government to pay its justly acquired debts? People holding these bonds now should instead gratefully exchange those worthless bonds for other equally worthless bonds, with the promise that "this time we're really going to pay - maybe". Argentina has made credit default almost an art form, but this time they've screwed theselves because they agreed for jurisdiction in the US for disputes on these. Note also that as a result the new 'bonds' Cristina is so generously offering (there really ought to be a better name for these fictitious instruments) will be solely under the jurisdiction of Argentine courts so, no payment, no suit, no anything. Just what's needed to inspire credit in the Argentine economy.