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forest444

(5,902 posts)
Thu Mar 10, 2016, 05:49 PM Mar 2016

Kirchnerist lawmakers want binding referendum on Macri's holdout bondholder settlement bill.

The FpV, the party representing Argentina's center-left Kirchnerists, proposed holding a binding public referendum to decide whether the holdouts deal proposed by Macri government in New York courts should be accepted.

In a press conference in which Congressman Axel Kicillof and caucus leader Héctor Recalde were the main speakers, the FpV said it should be up to the Argentine voters to decide whether the offer that was initially accepted by the vulture funds led by Paul Singer should be approved. A similar measure had initially been proposed by Workers’ Leftist Front (FIT) lawmakers.

Meanwhile, Argentina reached agreements worth $190 million yesterday with another group of holdout funds and creditors, as part of its effort to end the 15-year litigation with the vulture funds and other holdouts. This is in addition to settlements announced in February with other holdouts worth a total of $6.5 billion - around half of which would be received by the main litigant, Paul Singer's Cayman Islands-based NML.

The settlements included BNP Paribas, GMO, Carlo Regazzoni, Elazar Romano, Grazia Valenti, La Società Ymus, and Tomasso Zappoli Thyrion.

“I am very pleased to report that the Republic of Argentina continues to reach agreements in principle with bondholders, both large and small, holding defaulted Argentine bonds,” court-appointed mediator Daniel Pollack said in a press release. “The range and diversity of the settlements are encouraging.”

Each of these holdout settlements are contingent to the lifting of the Sovereign Payment and the Lock laws by Congress and to the lifting of payment hold imposed two years ago against Argentina's legitimate bondholders by U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa.

These bondholders, who represent 92.4% of those who held defaulted bonds in 2002 and whose bonds were later swapped in 2005 and 2010, object to these recent settlements with holdouts because the latter would receive, on average, a payout twelve times greater than they did when they accepted the 2005 and 2010 swaps.

The difference is far greater in the case of the main vulture litigant, Paul Singer's NML, which would receive around $3.3 billion for bonds bought from resellers in 2008 for $48 million - a 6,800% return.

Congressman Axel Kicillof, who served as President Cristina Kirchner's last Economy Minister at the height of the dispute with the vulture funds between 2013 and 2015, has condemned the proposed settlement because of the high likelihood that the legitimate bondholders whose payments have been blocked by Griesa would now sue for repayment on equal terms to those obtained by holdouts.

Kicillof estimates that such demands would expose Argentina to a new, potential liability of $500 billion.

At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/210385/kirchnerite-lawmakers-want-binding-referendum-on-holdouts-bill

And: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/economia/2-294204-2016-03-10.html&prev=search

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