Restructuring Sovereign Debt and Rebuilding a National Economy for a Failing State: The Case of Venezuela
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates, International and Comparative | 0

By Steven T. Kargman (Kargman Associates/International Restructuring Advisors)

Steven T. Kargman

Venezuela is facing a veritable perform storm: a major humanitarian crisis, a collapsing economy, a sovereign debt crisis, and a political stalemate between the ruling Maduro regime and the opposition.  Yet, if and when Venezuela tries to come to terms with these very serious challenges (probably under the auspices of a new Venezuelan government), Venezuela will first and foremost need to address the pressing social needs of the Venezuelan people, but it will also need to undertake the monumental task of rebuilding its national economy and restructuring its sovereign debt that has been estimated to be $150 billion or more.

In a new article entitled “Venezuela: Prospects for Restructuring Sovereign Debt and Rebuilding a National Economy Against the Backdrop of a Failing State,” I discuss the prospects for a sovereign debt restructuring as well as the major legal and policy challenges associated with a program of sovereign debt restructuring and national economic reconstruction.  For any future sovereign debt restructuring, Venezuela will need to consider employing a broad range of restructuring tools, both old and new.  Further, for any future economic reconstruction effort, Venezuela will need to consider strategies for rebuilding its national oil industry as well as strategies for diversification of its economy.

The article originally appeared in AIRA Journal, Vol. 34, No. 2 (May 2021) and is reprinted with the permission of its publisher, the Association of Insolvency & Restructuring Advisors (AIRA).  The article can be found here.  (The article was first posted on the CLS Blue Sky Blog of Columbia Law School (May 18, 2021) and is cross-posted here with the permission of the CLS Blue Sky Blog.)

Restructurings in Emerging Economies One Year into the COVID-19 Pandemic
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates, International and Comparative | 0

By Steven T. Kargman (Kargman Associates/International Restructuring Advisors)

Steven T. Kargman

A new article entitled “The COVID-19 Pandemic and Emerging Market Restructurings: The View One Year Later” provides an overview of the challenging economic landscape that continues to face many emerging economies in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it also discusses current sovereign debt restructuring and corporate debt restructuring issues in the emerging economies.
The article provides an analysis of sovereign debt restructuring situations involving a serial defaulter (Argentina) and failing states (Venezuela and Lebanon). It also reviews the sovereign debt restructuring travails of an African state, Zambia, that may have implications for future sovereign debt restructurings in Sub-Saharan Africa in light of the intercreditor tensions that arose in the Zambian case between Chinese creditors and bondholders.

Even though corporate defaults in the emerging economies were fairly muted over the last year, many observers expect a surge of corporate defaults, restructurings, and non-performing loans (NPLs) in the emerging economies and developing countries in the coming years, particularly as the special COVID-related responses of governments come to an end. Nonetheless, if and when there is a sharp increase in insolvencies in emerging market jurisdictions, this could pose a major problem for the court systems in the emerging economies and developing economies given the limited capacity of many of these systems to deal with a large volume of cases. Thus, there may well be a need for greater reliance on out-of-court restructurings to address this expected surge in insolvency cases in the emerging economies and developing countries.

The article originally appeared in International Insolvency & Restructuring Report 2021/22 and is reprinted with the permission of its publisher, Capital Markets Intelligence. The article can be found here.

Argentina’s Quest for the Moral High Ground in the Recent Restructuring with Its Foreign Bondholders
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates, International and Comparative | 0

By Steven T. Kargman (Kargman Associates/International Restructuring Advisors)

 

Steven T. Kargman

Argentina’s new government under President Alberto Fernández recently completed a bond exchange which was approved overwhelmingly by its foreign bondholders.  The final restructuring deal that Argentina reached with its foreign bondholders in early August was the product of a fraught and tortuous negotiating process that lasted several months and came after Argentina had defaulted on its sovereign debt in late May for the ninth time in its history.

A recent four-part article published in Global Restructuring Review examines the negotiating dynamics in the restructuring negotiations between Argentina and its foreign bondholders.  The article focuses in particular on what I call the “three P’s”—namely, the pandemic, the professoriate, and the Pope—that I argue underpinned Argentina’s strategy in those negotiations.

Argentina sought to use each of the “three P’s” to its advantage.  First, the pandemic likely made Argentina’s foreign creditors more accommodating in their stance vis-à-vis Argentina in light of the strains the pandemic placed on Argentina’s sovereign balance sheet.  Second, Argentina benefited from the support of prominent professors from around the world who expressed their strong support for Argentina’s negotiating position.  The professors weighed in on various matters such as whether Argentina’s debt sustainability would or would not be restored by debt restructuring proposals then under consideration and what type of collective action clauses (CACs) for binding dissenting creditors through a supermajority vote should be used in the new bonds issued pursuant to the restructuring.  Third, Argentina sought to benefit from the Pope’s moral authority as reflected in a meeting the Pope held in late January with President Fernández as well as in the Pope’s participation a few days later in a Vatican conference on issues of debt and development.

In its final section, the article discusses the economic prospects for Argentina post-restructuring in view of the major economic challenges that Argentina will continue to face notwithstanding the outcome of the recently concluded sovereign debt restructuring.  The article also provides an overview of certain factors that may be relevant to Argentina’s upcoming discussions with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concerning the IMF’s outstanding loan of $44 billion to Argentina.

The full article can be found here. This four-part article was first published in Global Restructuring Review (GRR) and is reposted with the permission of the GRR.

Challenges of Emerging Market Restructurings in the Age of COVID-19
by | posted in: Bankruptcy, International and Comparative | 0

By Steven T. Kargman (Kargman Associates/International Restructuring Advisors)

Steven T. Kargman

As part of the overall global economic slowdown in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many emerging market economies around the globe have suffered sharp economic downturns, particularly in light of the lockdowns of economies that were imposed in many of these countries.  With the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic in emerging economies, a number of these economies have been faced with a veritable perfect storm.

Specifically, many of these economies have been adversely affected by, among other things, a sharp drop in prices for commodities such as oil and various metals, the drying up of foreign tourism revenues in view of the disruption of international air travel and the closing of national borders, and the major decrease in remittances due to layoffs of overseas foreign workers.  In addition, many major emerging market currencies have experienced significant depreciation vis-à-vis hard currencies such as the US dollar.

Moreover, emerging economies as a whole have also faced what economists term a “sudden stop”—i.e., a sudden outflow of foreign investment capital that had previously been flowing into these economies.  Furthermore, the public finances of governments in the emerging markets have become strained as such governments have been forced to make expenditures on economic recovery programs as well as public health responses to the pandemic.

The article discusses the implications of the global economic slowdown associated with COVID-19 for restructuring activity in the emerging markets around the globe.  In particular, the article examines how the economic slowdown may give rise to several different types of emerging market restructurings, namely, sovereign debt restructurings, corporate debt restructurings, and infrastructure project restructurings.  It also examines how the economic slowdown in the emerging markets might affect restructuring-related matters involving state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and non-performing loans (NPLs) in national banking systems.

The article also considers special issues associated with China’s newly prominent role as the largest official creditor to the emerging markets and developing countries and China’s sponsorship of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects around the world.  Further, the article discusses other legal and policy issues that have become more salient in recent years in the context of emerging market restructurings, such as the role of holdouts in sovereign debt restructurings as well as the relevance in corporate debt restructurings in these jurisdictions of any potential gap that may exist between insolvency/restructuring law and practice.

The full article can be found here.

Venezuela’s Potential Debt Restructuring and Economic Recovery Efforts: Some Key Legal and Policy Challenges
by | posted in: Bankruptcy, Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates | 0

By Steven T. Kargman (Kargman Associates/International Restructuring Advisors)

Steven T. Kargman

The article provides an overview of certain key legal and policy issues that are likely to arise in any eventual Venezuelan debt restructuring.  Specifically, the article focuses on what will likely be some of the central elements of any future debt restructuring, including the possibility of debt-for-equity swaps and oil warrants, and it also reviews various considerations in connection with a possible insolvency filing by Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA.  Further, the article discusses legal and policy considerations related to economic recovery efforts that Venezuela may undertake in the future, including matters related to any efforts to revive Venezuela’s oil industry as well as any attempts to diversify Venezuela’s economy so that it is not so reliant on a single commodity, oil.  Finally, the article examines the issue of asset recovery and how a future Venezuelan regime might seek to recover assets that have been misappropriated from Venezuela.

This article recently appeared in the Venezuelan law journal, La Revista Venezolana de Legislación y Jurisprudencia (Venezuelan Journal of Legislation and Jurisprudence).  The full article can be found here.

Emerging Economies and Cross-Border Insolvency Regimes: Missing BRICs in the International Insolvency Architecture
by | posted in: International and Comparative | 0

By Steven T. Kargman, President, Kargman Associates

SK-Roslyn (July '14) (1) Many of the world’s major advanced economies are subject to some form of cross-border insolvency regime, such as Chapter 15 in the United States. However, despite this clear and important progress in the adoption of cross-border insolvency regimes among many advanced economies, there appears to be a glaring gap in the international insolvency architecture. Specifically, very few of the major emerging economies – and, in particular, none of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) – have adopted the UNCITRAL Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency or otherwise enacted effective alternative regimes for handling cross-border insolvencies.

With their growing integration into the global economy, these emerging economies may face a rising number of cross-border insolvencies at some point in the coming years. Nonetheless, while the current absence of cross-border insolvency regimes in major emerging economies may not represent an immediate problem in the next few years, it may pose challenges for the international insolvency framework over the longer term given that these economies are playing an increasingly important role in the global economy.

This two-part article, originally published in 2012-2013 in Insolvency and Restructuring International, reviewed the status of the adoption among major emerging economies of comprehensive insolvency regimes along the lines of the UNCITRAL Model Law and outlined possible pathways that emerging economies might pursue that could lead to the adoption of such cross-border insolvency regimes in these jurisdictions. The article also explored intermediate steps that emerging economies might adopt as a means of growing more comfortable with the concepts that are central to any meaningful cross-border insolvency regime.  Such intermediate steps might serve to pave the way ultimately for the adoption by these emerging market jurisdictions of a more comprehensive cross-border insolvency regime.

Part I of the article (September 2012) can be found here and Part II (April 2013) can be found here.  (This article was first published in Insolvency and Restructuring International, Vol. 6 No. 2, September 2012 and Vol. 7 No. 1, April 2013, and is reproduced with the kind permission of the International Bar Association, London, UK © International Bar Association.)