Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Lower House debates new bond swap bill

File photo shows Congress Lower House.

Lawmakers in the Lower House of Congress began to discuss the Executive’s Sovereign Payment bill a few minutes after noon today. The project has already been approved by the Senate and is expected to be passed in the early hours of tomorrow.

The special session, attended by 138 lawmakers, is to approve the bill establishing the local payment agent for Argentina’s restructured and holdout creditors, a new voluntary debt swap, and the creation of a permanent bicameral debt oversight committee.

Ruling Victory Front legislators should have enough support to pass the vote, expected between 4 and 6am tomorrow morning. 

Lawmaker Roberto Feletti (Victory Front), the president of the Lower House Budget committee, asserted that the bill "aims to defend the state's autonomy," highlighting the need for "a massive vote to preserve the debt restructuring process already carried out."

"There is no doubt at all that this process of restructuring debt has allowed 92 percent of bondholders to enter," Feletti pointed out upon opening the session today, adding that the world "is not seeing a prosperous age, clearly because financial is forcing developed countries into debt."

Opposition figurehead Elisa Carrió, however, contested the bill as a tool for ending the legal wranglings with vulture funds.

"The project sent to Congress to change the holdouts' payment location is far from being a solution. Quite the opposite, it will make the possibility of reaching an agreement even more difficult," the UNEN lawmaker fired. 

The new debt swap plan was approved by the Lower House Comissions yesterday after Economy Minister Axel Kicillof and Legal and Technical Secretary Carlos Zannini’s briefing.