Argentina bondholders say nation reneging on deals

Bloomberg

A group that holds defaulted Argentine bonds is seeking to block the nation from going forward with more than $6.2 billion in settlements until it gets paid.
The investors, including Trinity Investments Limited, Attestor Value Master Fund and Bybrook Capital Master Fund, said the nation is claiming it doesn’t have to pay them if they waited too long to sue.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa in Manhattan should prevent Argentina from certifying it has paid all settlements reached by Feb. 29 until the group is paid in full, the investors said in a filing on Friday. The certification is necessary for the multibillion-dollar settlements to go forward.
The request threatens to complicate a series of agreements that could end years of bitter court battles and allow Argentina to re-enter international credit markets for the first time since it defaulted on $95 billion in sovereign debt in 2001. A federal appeals court in New York will consider the settlements next week. “Movants seek to preserve the status quo and prevent Argentina from falsely claiming that it has paid ‘all’ plaintiffs with whom it has reached agreements in principle, while ignoring movants’ settlement agreements,” the bondholders said in Thursday’s filing.
Griesa said last month that he will drop court orders that barred Argentina from paying holders of its restructured debt or from issuing new bonds until it paid a group of bondholders, led by Paul Singer’s Elliott Management, that had sued to collect in full.