By Steven L. Schwarcz (Duke University School of Law)

This Roundtable post is based on the author’s forthcoming article, Sovereign Debt Restructuring and English Governing Law, scheduled for publication in a symposium issue of the Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial and Commercial Law (available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2952776).

Unsustainable sovereign debt is a serious problem for nations as well as their citizens and creditors. It also is a threat to global financial stability. The existing “collective action clause” contractual approach to restructuring that debt is inadequate. At the same time, a multilateral framework, such as a convention or treaty, is not currently politically feasible. Recent research shows a drastic rise in sovereign debt litigation by holdout creditors, suggesting the urgency of finding solutions.

This article proposes a novel legal framework, focusing on governing law, for restructuring unsustainable sovereign debt. Because a significant percentage of sovereign debt is governed by English law, the UK Parliament has a unique opportunity to modify that law to include the legislative equivalent of perfect aggregate-voting collective action clauses in all English-law governed sovereign debt contracts. That not only would facilitate the fair and equitable restructuring of unsustainable sovereign debt; it also should ensure the continuing legitimacy and attractiveness of English law as the governing law for future sovereign debt contracts.

The article also proposes and examines the text of a model law that Parliament could consider as a basis for its legislation. Additionally, the article explains why, even absent Parliamentary enactment, a model-law approach could contribute to the incremental development of sovereign-debt-restructuring norms.

The full paper is available here