Clauses & Controversies

Argentina's 2001 Debt Saga Revisited Argentina's 2001 default spawned nearly 15 years of litigation, culminating in the (in)famous pari passu injunction. Many episodes of the saga have been told in isolation, but it is complicated—FRANs, pari passu, Lock Law, RUFO, etc.—and, until recently, we didn't know of anything t

What the FRAN? This episode is on Argentina's famous FRANs (floating rate accrual notes). The notes were intended to protect holders against the risk that the country's credit would deteriorate... and boy did they ever. Due to a drafting glitch, or a simple failure of imagination, the FRANs wound up earning a few lucky

What to Make of the Stay Order in Hamilton Reserve Bank v. Sri Lanka? Strange things have been going on in the Hamilton Reserve Bank v. Sri Lanka case in New York federal court. Recently, in response to requests from the US and other governments, the judge agreed to stay the lawsuit for 6 months before giving HRB a jud

China’s Defaulted War Debts We’ve long viewed China’s defaulted debt from the first half of the twentieth century through the lens of the communist government refusing to pay back the defaulted debts of Imperial China. But historian Elya Zhang’s wonderful work on China’s debts documents how the story is much more compl

China’s Impact on Sovereign Debt Restructurings There has been much chatter (a lot of it out of Washington) about how China is mucking up the financial architecture for sovereign debt restructurings. Given the political and strategic biases of much of the chatter, it is often hard to separate out real claims from bulls

Dodgy SLBs We’ve been intrigued by the potential of sustainability-linked bonds. In theory, they should improve on green, “use of proceeds” bonds by providing incentives for issuers to invest in emissions reductions and other climate-related objectives. That’s why many in the green finance world were excited about them