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Full-Text Articles in Law
Injunctions In Sovereign Debt Litigation, Mark C. Weidemaier, Anna Gelpern
Injunctions In Sovereign Debt Litigation, Mark C. Weidemaier, Anna Gelpern
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Injunctions against foreign sovereigns have come under criticism on comity and enforcement grounds. We argue that these objections are overstated. Comity considerations are important but not dispositive. Enforcement objections assign too much significance to the court’s inability to impose meaningful contempt sanctions, overlooking the fact that, when a foreign sovereign is involved, both money judgments and injunctions are enforced through what amounts to a court-imposed embargo. This embargo discourages third parties from dealing with the sovereign and, if sufficiently costly, can induce the sovereign to comply. Nevertheless, we are skeptical about injunctions in sovereign debt litigation. They are prone to …
A Skeptic’S Case For Sovereign Bankruptcy, Anna Gelpern
A Skeptic’S Case For Sovereign Bankruptcy, Anna Gelpern
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
This essay describes fundamental flaws in the sovereign debt restructuring regime, but questions the prevailing arguments for sovereign bankruptcy. The author concludes that efficient debt outcomes may well come about without bankruptcy, but that a statutory regime is necessary to achieve sovereign autonomy and political legitimacy.
Banks And Governments: An Arial View, Anna Gelpern
Banks And Governments: An Arial View, Anna Gelpern
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Financial systems and public treasuries are communicating vessels: strength or weakness in one flows to the other, and back. This chapter considers the implications of this insight using case studies from Europe, Asia, and Latin America. The connection is not unique to Europe, although it does not always result in feedback effects, or the ‘doom loop’ that has made headlines since 2010. Events now known as banking or government debt crises often have had elements of both, and could have gone either way. Policy and political choices determined their path. In all cases, governments were as indispensable for resolving banking …
Contract Hope And Sovereign Redemption, Anna Gelpern
Contract Hope And Sovereign Redemption, Anna Gelpern
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Sovereign immunity has served as a partial substitute for bankruptcy protection, but it has encouraged a minority of creditors to pursue unorthodox legal remedies with spillover effects far beyond the debtor-creditor relationship. The attempt to enforce Argentina’s pari passu clause in New York is an example of such a remedy, which relies primarily on collateral damage to other creditors and market infrastructure to obtain settlement from a debtor that would not pay. The District Court decision, now on appeal before the Second Circuit, may not make holding out more attractive in future restructurings – but it would make participation less …
The Wonder-Clause, Anna Gelpern, Mitu Gulati
The Wonder-Clause, Anna Gelpern, Mitu Gulati
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The Greek debt crisis prompted EU officials to embark on a radical reconstruction of the European sovereign debt markets. Prominently featured in this reconstruction was a set of contract provisions called Collective Action Clauses, or CACs. CACs are supposed to help governments and private creditors to renegotiate unsustainable debt contracts, and obviate the need for EU bailouts. But European sovereign debt contacts were already amenable to restructuring; adding CACs could make it harder. Why, then, promote CACs at all, and cast them in such a central role in the market reform initiative? Using interviews with participants in the initiative and …