NOTE TO READERS: This post will be expanded after this morning’s oral arguments.
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The Supreme Court on Monday refused — at least for now — to review the power of U.S. courts to control how the government of Argentina chooses to pay off those who invested in itsgovernment bonds.  The issue, however, is expected to return when Argentine officials file a new challenge to a later ruling by the Second Circuit Court.  Justice Sonia Sotomayor took no part in Monday’s action.
No new cases were granted beyond those the Court had accepted on October 1, before the Term’s formal opening.
In another major business case, the Court refused to clear the way for 76 banks and otherfinancial institutions to appeal a dispute on their potential multi-billion-dollar liability for selling flawed mortgage-backed securities to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.   The denial — with Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., not taking part — was on a motion to intervene in order to file a petition in the Supreme Court.  Some of the banks involved in this dispute are engaged in settlement talks with federal officials.
While the Court issued a massive list of orders on cases that had come in over the summerrecess, it took no action on nine pending petitions testing the federal government’s power to regulate so-called “greenhouse gases” in an effort to head off global warming.
The Court asked the U.S. Solicitor General to offer the federal government’s views on whether the Court should hear six new petitions: 12-1226, Young v. United Postal Service; 12-1349,U.S. ex rel. Nathan v. Takeda Pharmaceuticals; 12-1351, Medtronic v. Stengel; 12-1497,Kellogg Brown & Root v. U.S. ex rel. Carter; and 13-43, Maersk Drilling USA v. Transocean Offshore Deepwater.
Among the cases the Court refused to review are the Duke lacrosse team scandal, involving police fabrication of evidence, three petitions seeking to have the Court undertake a major overhaul of Commerce Clause law in the context of state power to reach beyond its borders — here, a Michigan law on recycling of bottles and cans, a plea by a small religious community in Montana to avoid paying workers’ compensation to its employees, and a plea by a Qatari national, Ali Saleh Kahlan Al-Marri, to have his prisoin sentence reduced to make up for years he spent as a captive of the U.S. military in a terrorist investigation; the U.S. government had refused to response to Al-Marri’s petition.
Posted in Featured
Recommended Citation: Lyle Denniston, Argentine bond case denied, SCOTUSblog (Oct. 7, 2013, 9:35 AM), http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/10/argentine-bond-case-denied