US judge calls for Argentina to make next interest payment

NEW YORK, USA – A US judge pressed Monday, November 10, for Argentina to make an interest payment due next month, his latest bid to require Buenos Aires to comply with his ruling on its bond default.

Judge Thomas Griesa, whose earlier ruling blocking the country from making a debt payment forced it into default in July, said legal rescheduling would give Argentina a chance to pay Citibank funds that have been frozen.

“The court will… allow Citibank to process the December 31, 2014 interest payment, approximately $85 million, that it receives on the US dollar denominated Argentine law bonds,” Griesa wrote in an order.

The judge said he was postponing a hearing that had been set for December 9 on the case, to allow Buenos Aires to make payment.

Griesa has ruled that Argentina cannot make a $539 million interest payment to holders of its restructured bonds on June 30, unless it first pays off a group of “holdouts” who refused to take part in its 2005 and 2010 debt restructurings. He has frozen the funds at the Bank of New York.

But Argentina has refused to pay the holdouts, led by two US hedge funds that sued the country for full payment on the defaulted Argentine bonds they hold.

The hedge funds maintain that Argentina is stalling to avoid settling with them, which would mean paying $1.6 billion in principal and accrued interest on the bonds they hold. – Rappler.com