Business

Argentina beef isn’t done yet

Argentine bondholders who fear default yesterday asked an appeals court to let them continue to get paid while the South American country and Paul Singer’s Elliott Management duke it out.

A growing list of big-name bondholders say they are innocent bystanders facing “irreparable harm” from Manhattan federal judge Thomas Griesa’s order that Argentina set aside $1.3 billion to pay Elliott and other holdouts.

The judge ruled the money must be put in escrow by Dec. 15, when $3 billion is due to other bondholders who agreed to Argentina’s debt restructurings. Griesa said Argentina must pay Elliott each time it pays those bondholders.

Argentina President Cristina Kirchner has repeatedly insisted the country will never pay Elliott and the other holdouts, frustrating Griesa and leading him to order the escrow account.

But he ignored the appeals court’s admonition to “avoid interrupting Argentina’s regular payments to [exchange] bondholders,” according to the emergency motion filed yesterday.

“The motion would ensure that interest payments to the bondholders continue while the appeal is decided,” said David Boies, an attorney representing the bondholders, which include Gramercy, Brevan Howard and Alliance Bernstein.

Kirchner’s opposition to paying Elliott, which she calls a “vulture,” has widespread support in Argentina, but her intransigence is slamming the country’s bond prices. Investors fear that if Argentina disobeys Griesa’s ruling — and they don’t get paid — it would trigger default.

The exchange bondholders told the appeals court that Griesa’s ruling came three days after they filed their initial brief, “virtually ignoring” their concerns.

“The judge is applying terrorist tactics,” Fintech’s David Martinez, one of the exchange bondholders, told an Argentine newspaper.