Argentina: o fim da Doutrina Calvo, que se supunha ser solida...

Aparentemente, não se trata ainda do fim oficial, uma vez que a corte de NY apenas colocou a Argentina no âmbito da lei americana. Eventualmente, a Corte Suprema decida que a decisão judicial não pode submeter a uma entidade soberana estrangeira, que não pode ser submetida a uma lei nacional.
Vamos esperar para ver...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Argentina deuda

Argentina sufre duro revés en su batalla con acreedores

Infolatam/Efe
Buenos Aires, 25 de agosto de 2013

Las claves

• La decisión del panel de tres jueces de la corte de apelaciones del Segundo Distrito federal implica que la última oportunidad para que el país latinoamericano obtenga un resultado favorable en este prolongado proceso judicial radica en el Tribunal Supremo de Estados Unidos.
• El telón de fondo del litigio es el cese de pagos de una deuda de más de 100.000 millones de dólares que las autoridades argentinas decretaron en 2002, en medio de una grave crisis económica y social.

Argentina sufrió un duro revés en su larga batalla con los acreedores que no aceptaron reestructurar la deuda, pues la apelación de un fallo de la justicia de EE.UU. que le obliga a pagarles más de 1.330 millones de dólares fue rechazada.

La decisión del panel de tres jueces de la corte de apelaciones del Segundo Distrito federal implica que la última oportunidad para que el país latinoamericano obtenga un resultado favorable en este prolongado proceso judicial radica en el Tribunal Supremo de Estados Unidos.
Además de rechazar la apelación, el tribunal de apelaciones decidió mantener en suspenso la aplicación del fallo hasta que el Supremo decida si acepta o no pronunciarse sobre el tema, como se le solicitó el pasado 25 de junio.
“Esto le da mucho más tiempo a Argentina”, señaló a Efe la profesora de derecho de la Universidad de Georgetown Anna Gelpern, quien ha seguido este caso y considera que puede pasar un año o más antes de que el Supremo estadounidense anuncie su decisión.
El telón de fondo del litigio es el cese de pagos de una deuda de más de 100.000 millones de dólares que las autoridades argentinas decretaron en 2002, en medio de una grave crisis económica y social.
A través de dos procesos de canje, en 2005 y 2010, se logró una adhesión del 93 % para reestructurar la deuda en mora, con una quita del 65 %, fuertes ahorros en intereses y plazos de pago extendidos.
El esperado dictamen de los jueces Rosemary Pooler, Barrington Parker y Reena Raggi supone una gran victoria para el fondo NML, propiedad de Elliot Management, del multimillonarioe Paul Singer, que lidera la demanda presentada por los tenedores de bonos que rechazaron los canjes de deuda argentina.
La orden de hoy “condena apropiadamente la persistente violación por parte de Argentina de sus obligaciones y su enorme desafío a las leyes de Estados Unidos y las órdenes de los tribunales de EE.UU. Confirma que Argentina no está por encima de ley”, dijo el abogado de NML, Theodore Olson, en un comunicado.
Los querellantes, muchos de los cuales compraron estos bonos con grandes descuentos en los mercados, llevan una década batallando por recuperar el cien por cien del monto original, para lo que incluso llegaron a lograr el embargo temporal de la fragata “Libertad” de la Armada argentina en Ghana.
El Gobierno argentino ha dicho durante años que no pagará “ni un dólar” a los que califica como “fondos buitres”, alegando que eso sería injusto para los tenedores de bonos reestructurados.
La decisión no fue bien recibida entre los grupos de tenedores de bonos reestructurados y uno de sus abogados, Sean O’Shea, lamentó que “pasa por alto el injusto impacto del fallo sobre los derechos constitucionalmente protegidos de los tenedores de bonos reestructurados”.

Argentina perde nas cortes de New York: o fim da Doutrina Calvo?

Vejam primeiro esta pequena descrição da Doutrina Calvo na Wikipedia (um tema que venho seguindo desde muitos anos, mesmo não sendo jurista, apenas pelo interesse econômico do assunto):

Calvo Doctrine

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Calvo Doctrine is a foreign policy doctrine which holds that jurisdiction in international investment disputes lies with the country in which the investment is located. The Calvo Doctrine thus proposed to prohibit diplomatic protection or (armed) intervention before local resources were exhausted. An investor, under this doctrine, has no recourse but to use the local courts, rather than those of their home country. As a policy prescription, the Calvo Doctrine is an expression of legal nationalism. The principle, named after Carlos Calvo, an Argentine jurist, has been applied throughout Latin America and other areas of the world.

The doctrine arose from Calvos's ideas, expressed in his Derecho internacional teórico y práctico de Europa y América (Paris, 1868; greatly expanded in subsequent editions, which were published in French). Calvo justified his doctrine as necessary to prevent the abuse of the jurisdiction of weak nations by more powerful nations. It has since been incorporated as a part of several Latin American constitutions, as well as many other treaties, statutes, and contracts. The doctrine is used chiefly in concession contracts, the clause attempting to give local courts final jurisdiction and to obviate any appeal to diplomatic intervention.

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Agora vejam esta matéria abaixo transcrita do New York Times deste sábado 24/08/2013. Para mim ela significa simplesmente o fim da doutrina Calvo, depois de 15o anos de vigência mal aceita pelos países credores.

Ao fim e ao cabo, a Argentina acabou perdendo em todas as frentes, inclusive no plano doutrinal, mas sobretudo no plano material, pois a aventura do calote vai continuar custando caro. O nosso Império, que sempre pagou pontualmente suas dívidas, e a República, que renegociou de boa fé diversas vezes, acabou sendo confirmada em sua atitude prudente.

Quero ver os argumentos dos companheiros, agora que a "ousadia" argentina recebeu uma resposta judicial. Vão dizer que os argentinos é que fizeram bem?

Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

HEDGE FUNDS | LEGAL/REGULATORY AUGUST 23, 2013, 9:05 PM 7 Comments

Hedge Funds Win Ruling in Argentina Bond Case

BY PETER EAVIS

Elena Craescu/European Pressphoto AgencyA Ghana court seized the Argentine vessel ARA Libertad in October on an injunction requested by Elliott Management.

A dogged group of hedge funds secured a significant victory in a federal appeals court on Friday in a case that is likely to have far-reaching effects on international bond markets, parts of the banking system and the struggling nation of Argentina.

The hedge funds, including one affiliated with the investment firm of the billionaire Paul E. Singer, bought a handful of bonds that Argentina’s government defaulted on early in the last decade. Their aim was to buy the debt for pennies on the dollar and then sue Argentina to press it to pay the bonds in full. A lower court judge ruled in their favor, and a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York upheld his decision.

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The funds may not be in line for a big financial return on their high-risk bet, even after the court victory on Friday. But even if their wager never pays off, the funds’ litigation strategy is bringing important changes to the international market in which many countries borrow to finance their deficits and support their economies.

The litigation could also create a situation in which Argentina, led by PresidentCristina Fernández de Kirchner, chooses to default on billions of dollars of bonds, a move that would deepen the country’s economic problems. Argentina has employed prominent New York lawyers to fight its case. Mrs. Kirchner has often commented combatively on the case, calling the hedge funds “vultures.”

“This is legal history in the making,” said Arturo C. Porzecanski, a professor of international economics at the American University in Washington. “The ruling, as well as the entire Argentina litigation, is really setting precedent.”

The appeals court decision has its roots in a dark period of Argentina’s recent history. Reeling from a harsh economic slowdown, Argentina defaulted on nearly $100 billion of debt in 2001. In the years afterward, many of the country’s bondholders agreed to deals in which they received new “exchange” bonds that were worth a lot less than the original ones. Argentina has kept up with the payments on the exchange bonds since it issued them.

But some investors, known as holdouts, refused to join the exchange deals and demanded full repayment. This included Mr. Singer’s firm, Elliott Management, which has sued other developing countries to make money on defaulted bonds. In the Argentina case, it even persuaded a court in Ghana to seize an Argentine naval vessel.

The funds demanded that they be paid in full on $1.3 billion of defaulted Argentine bonds, and Judge Thomas P. Griesa of Federal District Court in New York ruled forcefully in their favor.

His ruling contained two crucial features. First, he said Argentina had to pay the holdouts on their defaulted bonds whenever it next made payments on the restructured bonds. And in a move that has few precedents, Judge Griesa came up with a way to potentially enforce his decision if Argentina chose to ignore it. He singled out the financial firms that pass the payments on the restructured bonds from the Argentine government to their holders. If these firms handled the payments, they could effectively find themselves in contempt of the court’s ruling.

Not wanting to break the law, the firms, like Bank of New York Mellon, would stop processing the bond payments. Mrs. Kirchner would then have to decide whether to pay the holdouts to clear the way for the payment-processing firms to funnel money to the holders of the exchange bonds or, in the alternative, default on the exchange bonds.

Though the appeals court sided with Judge Griesa, it delayed the enforcement of the decision while the Supreme Court decides whether to take the case.

“Today’s unanimous, well-reasoned decision appropriately condemns Argentina’s persistent violation of its obligations and its extraordinary defiance of the laws of the United States,” Theodore B. Olson, a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, the law firm that is representing an affiliate of Elliott Management, said in a statement.

“This is another opportunity for my government to do what it should do and deal in good faith,” said Horacio Vázquez, a Buenos Aires native who leads a group of bondholders who want to be repaid in full.

Elliott bought some of its Argentine debt before the country’s 2001 default, according to a person familar with the fund’s actions.

One big question is whether the appeals court decision will disrupt the sort of debt reductions that can ease the economic burdens of some countries. Investors might be emboldened to take a tough line after seeing Elliott’s legal successes.

But the appeals court argued that this Argentina case was narrow in nature, suggesting that it may not apply in other defaults. “This case is an exceptional one with little apparent bearing on transactions that can be expected in the future,” Judge Barrington D. Parker wrote in the decision.

Legal specialists who think the Argentina case won’t have a wide effect have also noted that many bonds now have a special feature that make it much harder for hedge funds to hold out.

Still, bonds continue to have a so-called pari passu clause, from the Latin for “on equal footing,” which has been crucial in this case. The clause provided the legal basis for the courts to demand that the holdouts be paid when the holders of the exchange bonds are paid.

“Everyone who has a clause like this had better look at it very carefully,” Mitu Gulati, a law professor at Duke, said.

Perhaps the most jarring development is that the appeals court upheld the provisions that are designed to stop banks from passing on payments on the exchange bonds. The government debt market lacks an authority, like a bankruptcy court, that can sort out disputes between creditors and debtors. By effectively tying the hands of firms like Bank of New York Mellon, the United States courts could become such an enforcer.

“This is the revolution in this case,” Mr. Gulati said. “For the first time in hundreds of years of sovereign debt, a court is saying, ‘We’re going to go out there and improve the market by helping you to enforce it.’ ”

The odds of Argentina getting the Supreme Court to rule on the case do not look strong.

“On the one hand, just looking at these questions as questions of law, I don’t think the Supreme Court is likely to take it up,” Henry Weisburg, a partner at Shearman & Sterling, said. “But you do have to balance this against the fact that sovereign states do get deference from the Supreme Court.”

In Argentina, Mrs. Kirchner is likely to keep up her strong opposition to the hedge funds for the foreseeable future, which means they probably won’t get paid in full any time soon.

But political analysts are starting to doubt whether she can win the 2015 election. That could pave the way for a new president who may be more willing to settle with the holdouts.

Jonathan Gilbert contributed reporting from Buenos Aires.

A version of this article appears in print on 08/24/2013, on page B1 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Hedge Funds Win Ruling In Argentina Bond Case .