Argentina Bets on Skeptical U.S. Judges to Avoid Crisis
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Argentina’s 12-year fight to shake off its 2001 financial crisis is in the hands of U.S. judges who assailed its “continual disregard” for creditor rights and refused to overturn lower court orders the nation repay billions of dollars in debt it defaulted on when its economy buckled.
Argentina contends that enforcing those orders may expose it to more than $43 billion in claims it can’t pay, possibly triggering another meltdown. Investors in the defaulted debt countered that if the country wants to pay holders of bonds restructured after its 2001 collapse, so-called exchange bonds, it has to pay them too. Until now, the U.S. courts have agreed.