RE: Us next!!5 Dec 2024 14:20
The story's here :
hxxps://tn.com.ar/economia/2024/12/04/caso-cupon-pbi-el-gobierno-dice-que-no-puede-pagar-un-fallo-por-us1500-millones-y-negocia-con-los-acreedores
The government stated that it cannot fully meet the US$1.5 billion (€1.3 billion plus interest) judgment of the British courts for the manipulation of INDEC statistics in 2013, known as the GDP Coupon case.
The Casa Rosada indicated that ‘for reasons widely known’ the country ‘is not in a position to pay the totality of the amounts owed’.
The confirmation comes after the expiry of the judicial deadlines to make the payment or for the creditors to execute the guarantee of some US$310 million that Argentina had deposited in London in March in order to appeal the first instance ruling and which it ended up losing in October, when the UK Supreme Court dismissed the case. They can also initiate proceedings to try to seize Argentine assets.
Those deadlines expired between 21 and 28 November. Upon non-payment, the plaintiffs claimed to enforce the guarantee money. According to the government, these guarantee funds ‘allow the plaintiffs to recover PART of the amounts’ contemplated in the ruling. In this sense, they remarked that they are currently evaluating, as TN reported, ‘A CALENDAR FOR ADDITIONAL PAYMENTS’ to comply with the court ruling.
In this context, they emphasised that the plan must be ‘consistent with Argentina's commitment to fiscal and monetary discipline, the pillars of this administration's economic policy’.
In October, after the ruling became final, the government RULED OUT A DEFAULT and stressed that there was no possibility of avoiding the disbursement. However, they hinted that they would seek to EXTEND the deadlines to pay the ruling: the guarantee as a FIRST step and then negotiate with the creditors a timetable to meet the nearly US$ 1 billion outstanding.
The alternatives under analysis include DELIVERING PUBLIC SECURITIES already on the market or ISSUING A SOVEREIGN BOND, as was done to cancel the debt with Repsol after the expropriation of the Spanish company's shares in YPF.
PBI coupons: a conflict with two open fronts
The judicial conflict over the payment of the PBI coupons originated when, in 2013, Argentina decided to change the formula used by INDEC to calculate the growth of the economy. These bonds paid out precisely if the GDP increased above a certain level. The claim is that the country stopped publishing GDP data for the last quarter of 2013, changed the formula and said that annual growth was 3.2%, just below the 3.3% that triggered the payment.
This decision generated claims in international courts. In London, for the euro version of the GDP coupon; and in New York, for the dollar series. The European litigation advanced faster and in 2023 the judge of first instance ordered Argentina to pay 1.3 billion euros for the interest corresponding to the PBI coupon during 2013.
An encouraging 'statement of
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