By Nate Raymond
NEW YORK, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Creditors suing Argentina overbillions of dollars in defaulted bonds have subpoenaed HSBCHoldings Plc for information about the country's effortto raise money abroad, a person familiar with the matter said onTuesday.
The subpoena was a sign that the bondholders intend to keeppressure on the country even as the new administration ofArgentine President Mauricio Macri moves toward resolving thelong-running litigation over its $100 billion default in 2002.
Creditors, including hedge funds Elliott Management's NMLCapital Ltd and Aurelius Capital Management LP, are seekinginformation from HSBC on whether a more than $5 billion loanArgentina is seeking from foreign banks would violate a courtorder, the source said.
Argentine Finance Minister Alfonso Prat-Gay on Dec. 17 saidhe expected the country's central bank to reach a deal withforeign banks within 10 days for the credit line.
A banking source previously told Reuters that Argentina wasin talks over a loan with HSBC, JPMorgan Chase & Co,Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Deutsche Bank AG andCitigroup Inc.
Laura Powers, a spokeswoman for HSBC, said the bank does notcomment "on open or pending legal matters." A U.S. lawyer forArgentina did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
News of the subpoena, first reported by Bloomberg, came aweek after a court-appointed mediator, Daniel Pollack, said Argentina's new government and the bondholders would meet in thesecond week of January to start "substantive" settlementtalks.
Macri, a free-market advocate who took office earlier thismonth, has moved to start reversing some of the populistpolicies of the prior governments and has said it was a priorityto settle the more than decade-old sovereign debt dispute.
The South American country has been restricted fromaccessing international capital markets for years by the legalbattle with creditors who rejected the terms of its 2005 and2010 bond restructurings.
Those restructurings resulted in 92 percent of its defaulteddebt being swapped and investors being paid less than 30 centson the dollar.
Argentina defaulted again in July 2014 after refusing tohonor court orders to pay $1.33 billion plus interest toholdouts, including Elliott Management's NML Capital Ltd andAurelius when it paid restructured bond holders.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa in New York, who has longoverseen the litigation, in October extended similar relief toholders of several billions of dollars more in defaulted bonds. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Dan Grebler)