Argentina refuses to submit to debt 'extortion'
WASHINGTON — After the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a double-barreled defeat to Argentina Monday in that nation's continuing efforts to escape its creditors, President Cristina Fernandez said her country can't comply with the demand to pay up.
Fernandez, in a nationally televised address, said Argentina is willing to negotiate, but will be unable to pay its debts within the next two weeks, as the court has ordered.
"What I cannot do as president is submit the country to such extortion," Fernandez said.
The high court refused to consider Argentina's appeal of lower court rulings in New York that it remains liable for debts to holdout creditors who earlier refused to accept its restructured debt offerings.
And the justices ruled in a separate case that the holdout creditors have the right to seek the debtor nation's hidden assets around the world. Only Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented from that ruling.
The rulings represented a victory for NML Capital, a so-called "vulture fund" subsidiary of Paul Singer's Elliott Management Corp. The hedge fund, which represents corporate investors, is owed more than $1.5 billion after refusing Argentina's 25 cents-on-the-dollar offerings in 2005 and 2010.
Fernandez said experts are working to find a solution that would enable Argentina to honor their debts and avoid default, but she said her government will not make the court-ordered payments.
"It's our obligation to take responsibility for paying our creditors, but not to become the victims of extortion by speculators," Fernandez said.
The implications of the rulings are important to state pension funds and others suing foreign countries for damages, such as families of terrorism victims.
The decisions continue Argentina's losing streak in federal courts. Although the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 was intended to protect nations from U.S. courts, district and appeals judges have ruled that the holdout creditors can go after Argentine assets and should be treated the same as creditors who accepted the country's restructured debt.
"The subpoenas may turn up information about property that Argentina regards as immune but that NML thinks is subject to execution," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the court's majority. In that case, he said, "Argentina's self-serving legal assertion will not automatically prevail; the District Court, in its sound discretion, will have to settle the matter."
The legal and financial complexities have grown for 13 years since Argentina's $82 billion default in 2001 — at the time, the largest government default in history.
The decisions were a setback for the Obama administration, however. The State Department had warned that if Argentina's property can be sought beyond U.S. borders, foreign courts could do the same thing to the United States.
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Contributing: The Associated Press