Greisa then threatened to sanction Argentina’s conduct. “Argentina has the duty to comply with the judicial decisions of the U.S.,” Griesa said. And he warned: “Our courts are not helpless. We can take measures, which I will not discuss here, to punish Argentina’s conduct,” he said.

Clarin

The fund NML must tell the judge today how much it wants to collect

 

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

 

The vulture fund NML must file today a brief before US Judge Thomas Griesa in which it must detail what is the amount it aspires to collect from Argentina in exchange for cancelling its demand for bonds from the country that it holds and that it didn’t enter with in the swaps of 2005 and 2010.

 

NML is the same fund that moved against Argentina in Ghana and managed to end up with the Frigate Libertad detained there.  In the US, the judiciary of that country also ruled in favor of an NML demand: at the end of October, the Court of Appeals upheld a previous ruling from Griesa, judge of the Southern District of Manhattan, that ordered Argentina to pay all the bondholders, those who entered or not, in a proportional manner.  That means that on December 2, the payment day for bondholders that entered the debt swap, Argentina also will have to begin paying the vulture funds.

 

Last week, Griesa told NML to specify the amount of its demand as well as told Argentina to offer a payment plan.  The attorneys representing the country have until 72 hours after NML’s filing: the deadline comes on Friday.

 

In that context, yesterday President Cristina Kirchner let it be understood once again that she is not ready to abide by the decision of the US courts.

 

“We will not give in,’ said Nestor Kirchner on March 1, 2004, and so says this President eight years later,” she warned, during an event in Villa Constitution.

 

On Friday, in a hearing before a full courtroom in New York, Griesa had already asked on four occasions if Cristina Kirchner had said strictly that she would not abide by the decision of the Court of Appeals.  The attorney representing Argentina in that case, Carmine Bocuzzi, responded evasively in every one of the four occasions.  Greisa then threatened to sanction Argentina’s conduct.  “Argentina has the duty to comply with the judicial decisions of the U.S.,” Griesa said.  And he warned: “Our courts are not helpless.  We can take measures, which I will not discuss here, to punish Argentina’s conduct,” he said.

 

The warning came after an attempt by the legal representative to delay the process: he’d asked for a month to respond to NML’s demand.  Griesa granted only three days. 

 

According to what Griesa put forth, it would have been acceptable if Cristina Kirchner had said that she will continue appealing the decisions.  But he made it clear that he will not accept the President saying directly that she will not abide by what a judicial ruling says.

 

“If there is any thinking on the part of the Argentine Republic to defy and evade the recent decision, that thinking should be seriously reconsidered and set aside,” the judge said.

 

Almost as a reminder, Judge Griesa recalled that the rulings of the US Court of Appeals are “binding” because Argentina, when it issued the bonds that are in default since 2001, had ceded its jurisdiction to the courts of the United States.