Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Gov’t says Griesa contempt order 'baseless, has no impact’

Cabinet Chief Jorge Capitanich speaks at government house.

Cabinet chief Jorge Capitanich said that US judge Thomas Griesa’s decision to hold Argentina in contempt of court in the country’s longstanding legal battle against its holdout creditors is “baseless” and has “no impact” in the national economy.

The official stressed that Griesa’s new ruling “has no practical effect” and considered it as a part of “vulture funds’ smear and extortion campaign.”

“The ruling was expected,” the chief of ministers said in his daily press briefing at government house. “It is judicial gibberish in a highly complex process in which each new decision (by the judge’s) is worse than the previous one,” he added.

Capitanich said the dispute is at a “crossroads” and that its final solution is “uncertain given (Griesa’s) remarkable incompetence to solve a simple issue.”

He also reiterated Argentina’s call for the US government to accept the International Court of Justice’s jurisdiction in order to settle the ongoing dispute