The court-appointed mediator in a long-running debt dispute pitting Argentina against holdout hedge funds said Wednesday that President-elect Mauricio Macri's incoming administration intended to negotiate a settlement.
US judge Thomas Griesa on Friday accepted the priority repayment claims of hundreds more Argentine bondholders who did not join a huge debt restructuring. The ruling, on 49 complaints representing debt worth $6.1 billion, added fresh pressure on Buenos Aires which has refused to pay off two hedge fund creditors that already won court support for their claims.
US District Judge Thomas Griesa of New York on Wednesday urged Argentina to resume talks to settle bondholder litigation flowing from its $100 billion default in 2002. The judge made the remarks as creditors suing over defaulted bonds urged him to expand to nearly $8 billion the amount Argentina must pay them to service its restructured debts.
The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York refused on Monday to force Bank of New York Mellon Corp to turn over to holders of defaulted Argentine bonds any of the $539 million the country deposited in 2014 to pay creditors who participated in its past restructurings.
New York district judge Thomas Griesa has said he will consider all Argentine government assets in the United States, except for diplomatic and military ones, as commercial assets which hedge fund NML Capital could try to seize.
Argentina on Monday won a battle in its ongoing struggle with hedge funds holding sovereign bonds. In this case Argentina managed the reversal of a U.S. judge's ruling that a group of bondholders suing over its defaulted debt said entitled them to $700 million.
Argentina must pay US$5.4 billion to more than 500 “me-too” holders of defaulted debt before it can pay the majority of its creditors, a US judge ruled on Friday. Argentina anticipated it would appeal the ruling.
Economy Minister Axel Kicillof confirmed the Argentine government will be filing a complaint against speculative or 'vulture' funds for seeking to seize the accounts of the Argentine embassy in Belgium, and the Argentine mission before the EU in Brussels, adding hedge funds are the most “despicable and repugnant” of the world financial system.
The Argentine government in a late release on Thursday strongly denied an 'inexact information' related to alleged embargos by speculative funds (or vulture funds) on bank accounts from the Argentine embassy and its staff, in Belgium, and said that the attempts to freeze 'embassy funds' are but a new extortion attempt and a clear procedure abuse which could be sanctioned by Belgian tribunals.
U.S. judge on Wednesday ruled that hedge funds suing over unpaid debt stemming from Argentina's 2002 default are entitled to details of a recent bond offering by Buenos Aires.