Clauses & Controversies

Ep 166 - Imperial (Defaulted) Chinese Bonds (Again)

01 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Imperial (Defaulted) Chinese Bonds (Again) Yes, one of us might have sworn up and down that we would never do another episode about defaulted Imperia...

Ep 165 - Total Return Swaps

24 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Total Return Swaps There have been reports in the financial press about the use of Total Return Swaps to provide credit to governments (e.g., Angola...

Ep 164 - Cambodia’s “Dirty Debts” to the US — Redux

10 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Cambodia’s “Dirty Debts” to the US — Redux In the 1970s, the US allowed Cambodia to finance the importation of rice and other agricultural co...

Ep 163 - What if POTUS wanted an OBBD?

20 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What if POTUS wanted an OBBD? Let us say, purely hypothetically, that there is a point at which some combination of the spending excesses of the One ...

Ep 162 - The Invasion Tax

06 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Invasion Tax The lawsuit over Ukraine's $3 billion bond debt to Russia seems to be on hold (maybe forever) in the English courts. And maybe there...

Ep 161 - Argentina Again

29 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Argentina Again The Trump administration says it will do “whatever it takes” to rescue the Argentine peso and bond yields, saving buddy Javier M...

Ep 160 ft. Mitu & Mark

23 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ukraine's Expansive "Fiscal Laws" Clause International sovereign bonds, and particularly those issued under English law, often include a clause prov...

Ep 159 ft. Mitu & Mark

10 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Greek GDP Warrant Drama Greece’s debt situation has improved remarkably, from default status in 2012 to investment grade in 2025. A few weeks a...

Ep 158 ft. Mitu & Mark

28 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Some Questions, Now That it's About 3 Years Since Russia’s Default It has now been around 3 years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which prom...

Ep 157 ft. Mitu & Mark

12 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Sovereign Debt Odd & Ends An odds and ends podcast about unrelated sovereign debt topics. First up, Venezuela. Most investors have been sitting arou...

Ep 156 ft. Paul Stephan

28 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Is There Any Law of State Succession? Syria, Ukraine and Greenland. The law of state succession to obligations comes mostly from a different era, whe...

Ep 155 ft. Mitu & Mark

31 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What if Trump Discovers that Unpaid UK (and French) Debt From WWI? The current administration has tossed concepts such as “special relationships”...

Ep 154 ft. Mitu & Mark

24 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What Might a Syrian Debt Restructuring (Eventually) Look Like? There is little doubt that Syria needs to restructure its debt, among other reasons to...

Ep 153 ft. Mitu & Mark

17 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

User Fees on the US Treasury Strategic Gold Crypto Reserve Trump plans to reduce the US debt. We are missing some of the steps, but here are the ones...

Ep 152 ft. Mitu & Mark

03 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Why Do We Care Who is Behind HRB’s Sri Lankan Lawsuit? The Hamilton Bank litigation against Sri Lanka appears to be reaching the end. Or is it? The...

Ep 151 ft. Sarah Carlson & Elena Duggar

17 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Greece’s (Ratings) Rise From the Ashes – Wow, but also How? We study sovereign restructurings, which means we primarily study countries going int...

Ep 150 ft. Andrew Kissner

03 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Getting "J. Screwed" Sounds Better than Getting "Argentina'd" In the world of corporate debt, everyone seems to be talking about "Liability Managemen...

Ep 149 ft. Mitu & Mark

20 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Is Sri Lanka’s Loss Reinstatement Provision a Penalty? Two of our favorite things to talk about are innovative contract clauses and ancient illogic...

Ep 148 ft. Mitu & Mark

06 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Sri Lanka's New MFC Clause — Have "Contorts" Arrived in Sovereign Debt? The doctrine of tortious interference with contracts is one of several tha...

Ep 147 ft. Paul Stephan

01 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

YPF and Argentina’s Contributions to International Law Argentina owes over $16 billion in connection with its nationalization of state oil company...

Ep 146 ft. Mitu & Mark

04 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Penalty Doctrine in Contract Law We've never been fans of the contract law rule against penalties. Why can't parties (sophisticated ones at least...

Ep 145 ft. Mitu & Mark

07 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A New Competition For Law (and Jurisdiction)? Jurisdictions famously compete for businesses to use their corporate law. Less discussed is the competi...

Ep 144 ft. Nate Oman

30 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

An Execution Sale is Not a Receivership. (Right?) Creditors of Venezuela and PDVSA, its state oil company, have forced an execution sale of PDVSA's o...

Ep 143 ft. Mitu & Mark

23 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Hamilton Bank v. Sri Lanka: What the $@#$ ? Accusations that Hamilton Bank is a giant fraudster stealing depositor funds, bizarro requests from Hamil...

Ep 142 ft. Theo Maret

09 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Zambia’s Restructuring: A Post-Mortem Zambia’s recently concluded restructuring seemed to drag on forever, debilitated by conflicts among the var...

Ep 141 ft. Mitu & Mark

02 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Champerty Show Ah, Champerty. Perpetual runner-up, to the doctrine of consideration, in the Stupidest Legal Rule pageant. Why do directly (e.g., ...

Ep 140 ft. Zohra Ahmed

26 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

IMF Rescues Pakistan From the Brink of Default (Again) Pakistan looks to be in the process of finalizing yet another IMF program. Yet again, it has b...

Ep 139 ft. Oona Hathaway

19 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A Better Way to Freeze (and Seize?) Russian Assets? Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, there has been talk of what international law doctrin...

Ep 138 ft. Randle DeFalco

12 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Cambodia’s Debts to the US: How “Dirty” Are They? Roughly a half century ago, in the 1970s, the US infamously bombed Cambodia. Less known is th...

Ep 137 ft. Joseph Cotterill

05 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ukraine's Preliminary Debt Restructuring Deal Ukraine reportedly has reached terms with a subset of its bondholders, agreeing to restructure the coun...

Ep 136 ft. Andrew Wilkinson

20 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Tortious Interference and Inter-Creditor Duties Creditors in sovereign debt restructurings often complain about other creditors. And creditors often ...

Ep 135 ft. Ben Heller

29 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

El Salvador’s Warrants: Bukele’s Folly? El Salvador has issued a new bond, using part of the proceeds to buy back some bonds that mature in the r...

Ep 134 ft. Mitu & Mark

15 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Latest in the Argentine GDP Warrant Saga: Drafting Goof or Sneaky Drafting? There are so many intriguing aspects of the latest installment of the...

Ep 133 ft. Jerome Sgard

08 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Lessons from the 1980s Debt Crisis The 1980s debt crisis began in Mexico and engulfed countries around the world, leading, via the Brady Plan, to the...

Ep 132 ft. Ingrid Brunk & Paul Stephan

01 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A Way to Use Frozen Russian Assets to Help Ukraine? There has been much chatter lately about a proposal from Lee Buchheit, Daleep Singh and Hugo Dixo...

Ep 131 ft. Mitu & Mark

25 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ukrenergo Confusion Rumor has it that holders of bonds issued by Ukrenergo, the state-owned corporation that runs Ukraine's electricity distribution ...

Ep 130 ft. Kejal Vyas

18 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Who Benefits from Lifting Sanctions on Buying Venezuelan Bonds? Banning U.S. parties from buying Venezuelan bonds was probably a bad idea. But was it...

Ep 129 ft. Mitu & Mark

11 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Last Sovereign Bond in New York Due to litigation over the PDVSA 2020 bond, all future issues of sovereign bonds in New York have been canceled, ...

Ep 128 ft. Chris Spink

04 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Something Black in the Lentils at Ukrenegro A few weeks ago, there was an announcement that some of the creditors of the Ukrainian electric company, ...

Ep 127 ft. Lauge Poulsen

26 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Back to the Future (Again) -- Russian Frozen Assets Episode In recent months, there has been much talk about what to do with frozen Russian assets an...

Ep 126 ft. Mitu & Mark

05 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Tierra del Fuego and Tinfoil Hats The financial press has mostly overlooked the recent debt restructuring by Argentine province Tierra del Fuego. (To...

Ep 125 ft. Mitu & Mark

29 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Can Someone Explain What is Happening to SLBs? A year and a half or so ago, we were working on a paper with UVA’s Quinn Curtis on how the promises ...

Ep 124 ft. Nate Oman

22 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Equity Receiverships and Sovereign Debt Observers of sovereign debt markets have long lamented the inability to impose restructuring terms on dissent...

Ep 123 ft. Mitu & Mark

15 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How Much of the YPF Judgement Will Burford, Realistically, Recover? Burford Capital, a highly sophisticated litigation finance operation, has won an ...

Ep 122 ft. Greg Makoff

08 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Argentina's 2001 Debt Saga Revisited Argentina's 2001 default spawned nearly 15 years of litigation, culminating in the (in)famous pari passu injunct...

Ep 121 ft. Ben Heller

13 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What the FRAN? This episode is on Argentina's famous FRANs (floating rate accrual notes). The notes were intended to protect holders against the risk...

Ep 120 ft. Mitu & Mark

06 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What to Make of the Stay Order in Hamilton Reserve Bank v. Sri Lanka? Strange things have been going on in the Hamilton Reserve Bank v. Sri Lanka cas...

Ep 119 ft. Elya Zhang

16 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

China’s Defaulted War Debts We’ve long viewed China’s defaulted debt from the first half of the twentieth century through the lens of the commu...

Ep 118 ft. Alexandra Zeitz & Lauren Ferry

09 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

China’s Impact on Sovereign Debt Restructurings There has been much chatter (a lot of it out of Washington) about how China is mucking up the finan...

Ep 117 ft. Priscila Azevedo Rocha & Todd Gillespie

02 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Dodgy SLBs We’ve been intrigued by the potential of sustainability-linked bonds. In theory, they should improve on green, “use of proceeds” bon...

Ep 116 ft. Kenza Bryan

25 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Are sustainability-linked bonds here to stay? Sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs) tie the issuer’s payment obligations to the satisfaction of some e...

Ep 115 ft. Ignacio Lagos

18 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Sovereign Sustainability Linked Bonds: What’s Going On? The newest product on the sovereign scene is the sustainability linked bond. The product is...

Ep 114 ft. Steven Bodzin

21 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Venezuelan Debt: The CITGO Auction, Statute of Limitations, and Other Enforcement Matters It’s a busy time for Venezuela’s creditors. The auctio...

Ep 113 ft. Rebecca Burton

14 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Chasing Payment on Old Cuban Debt We have a great fondness on this podcast for unpaid historical debts and the attempts to litigate these. One such s...

Ep 112 ft. Timothy Dodsworth, Maggie Hemsworth & Severine Saintier

07 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Unpacking the Argentine GDP Warrants Case In 2005 and 2010, Argentina issued GDP-linked warrants as a sweetener to investors participating in its d...

Ep 111 ft. Dan Lainer-Vos

31 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Is a Diaspora Bond a Loan or a Gift? Contract law distinguishes contracts from promises to make a gift. Contracts are enforceable; gift promises are...

Ep 110 ft. Mitu & Mark

24 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Hamilton Bank Redux We have talked before about the lawsuit by Hamilton Bank against Sri Lanka, noting that Hamilton Bank is trying to avoid the effe...

Ep 109 ft. Felix Salmon

01 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The New Not Normal Felix Salmon, the OG of sovereign debt journalism joins us for our final episode of the season. We talk to Felix about his forthco...

Ep 108 ft. David Schleicher

24 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In a Bad State The world of sovereign debt research has long given short shrift to insights that might be gained from the study of sub sovereign debt...

Ep 107 ft. Nate Oman

17 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ukraine's Victory in the UK Supreme Court More than three years after hearing argument, the U.K. Supreme Court finally handed down a decision in Russ...

Ep 106 ft. Mitu & Mark

10 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Sri Lanka’s Litigation Risk: Yet Another Problem With the Slow Pace of Restructurings A while back, Sri Lanka was sued by an investor, Hamilton Ban...

Ep 105 ft. Reza Baqir

03 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Pakistan's Debt Distress Pakistan's debt distress has focused scrutiny on its debt structure, which includes lots of bilateral and official borrowing...

Ep 104 ft. Townsend Hyatt

27 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Do Native American Tribes Pay Too Much to Borrow? Recent research suggests that Native American tribes pay significantly more to borrow than their...

Ep 103 ft. Melissa Butler

20 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Why is the Zambian Restructuring Dragging on So? There are finally signs of progress in Sri Lanka’s restructuring, with the various bilaterals prov...

Ep 102 ft. David Gill

13 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Long Shadow of Default The sovereign debt literature has somehow managed to overlook one of the biggest, most enduring debt defaults on record, ...

Ep 101 ft. Natasha White

06 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

ESG investing What combines existential dread (climate change) with bewildering What counts as ESG investing? At times, it seems like almost anythin...

Ep 100 ft. Wailin Wong

27 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Debt Ceiling Drama The drama around the U.S. debt ceiling should be low hanging fruit for a podcast about sovereign debt. But we have been unsure of...

Ep 99 ft. Jorgelina do Rosario & Karin Strohecker

20 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Domestic Debt, Financing Assurances, and other Fault Lines in Sovereign Debt Restructuring Ghana’s attempts to restructure its domestic debt have...

Ep 98 ft. Chelsey Dulaney

13 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ghana's Restructuring: Why the Mess? Sovereign debt restructurings seem to be stuck in quicksand. The various players (IMF, China, commercial credito...

Ep 97 ft. Rich Schragger

06 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Do Bondholders Care About Bankruptcy Access? Theory tells us that bondholders care whether sovereign debtors have access to a bankruptcy process. Fea...

Ep 96 ft. Avinash Persaud

30 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Fear of Fund” and the Bridgetown Initiative Sovereign debt has been very much in the news in early 2023 thanks to a combination of factors that hav...

Ep 95 ft. Livia Hinz

23 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Bondholders Rights as a Function of Nationality Rather than Contract Recent debt restructurings have raised the question whether some investors in so...

Ep 94 ft. Mary Childs

16 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Bond King The name PIMCO is ubiquitous in the world of bond finance. But aside from its enormous size, why is PIMCO so important? Our guest this ...

Ep 93 ft. Vincent Buccola

09 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lessons from the U.S. Municipal Bond Cases? In a sovereign debt crisis, a government will sometimes argue that the country does not have to pay some ...

Ep 92 ft. Mitu & Mark

12 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Ghana’s 2030 FUD Bond We learned a new term a few days ago: FUD. Apparently common in the crypto world, it refers to when panic about something spr...

Ep 91 ft. Sydney Maki

28 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A Truly Gnarly Year Times are pretty bad for emerging markets, what with a surging dollar, interest rate increases, etc. But somehow, despite having...

Ep 90 ft. Mitu & Mark

21 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Please Sir, May I Read the Contract? Sovereign bonds are sold after distribution of a sales document -- a prospectus or offering circular -- that des...

Ep 89 ft. Mitu & Mark

14 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Pakistan’s Bizarro 2024 Bond Pakistan is in crisis and its bonds are in the toilet. One of its bond series though, the 2024, is not like the other...

Ep 88 ft. John Coyle

07 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Contracting for Home Field Advantage Virtually all international sovereign bonds include provisions designed to make it easier for investors to sue ...

Ep 87 ft. Mitu & Mark

31 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Ukraine’s Dodgy Designations In its recent debt reprofiling, Ukraine asserted that it had the unilateral right to “re-designate.” The context h...

Ep 86 ft. Mitu & Mark

24 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Why Did the Dog Not Bark? (or Why Did the Creditors Consent So Readily?) Ukraine’s gave creditors in its 2016 restructuring GDP warrants that were...

Ep 85 ft. Chris Spink

17 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Making (Non?)Sense of the Russian CDS Auction CDS auctions intimidate us because there is so much that we don’t understand about how they are suppo...

Ep 84 ft. Steven Tepper

10 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Diaspora Bonds Remittances are an important source of capital for many countries. Though remittances often flow directly to family and close relatio...

Ep 83 ft. Nikou Asgari

03 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It’s a Mad, Mad World Pakistan’s debt repayment prospects were dicey even before the catastrophic floods. Now, a debt restructuring seems almost...

Ep 82 ft. Alexandra Scaggs

19 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Is the Bottom Falling Out of the EM Sovereign Debt Market? The dollar is rising in value; interest rates are rising, borrowing costs for EM sovereig...

Ep 81 ft. Chelsey Dulaney

05 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The New, New Syndicated Lending In the 1970s and 1980s, most sovereign lending took the form of syndicated bank loans. This changed after the 1980s d...

Ep 80 ft. Larry Neal

22 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Louisiana Purchase and the Origins of the Sovereign Bond Market Most of us learn the story of the Louisiana Purchase as one where the key player...

Ep 79 ft. Zach Carter

18 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What will the Price of Peace with Putin be? Reparations, war debts, post-war reconstruction, controlling inflation through interest rates . . . The t...

Ep 78 ft. Mitu & Mark

04 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Has There Really Been a Russian Default? The 30-day grace period recently expired on Russian bond payments due in May, and the Russian government als...

Ep 77 ft. Mitu & Mark

27 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What's With the Lawsuit Against Sri Lanka? Normally, holdouts keep a low profile until after a sovereign restructures its debt. For one thing, the go...

Ep 76 ft. Vladimir Werning

13 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Argentina’s Never-Ending GDP Warrant Saga Academics have long been fans of GDP indexed instruments as a means of smoothing out economic shocks that...

Ep 75 ft. Paolo Manasse, Matilde Faralli & Ugo Panizza

23 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Value of Building a Reputation for Repaying Debts: Overstated? A foundational question about sovereign debt markets is why, given the difficulty...

Ep 74 ft. Laurent Dubois

16 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Gunboats, Marines and Bonds: The Ugly US Occupation of Haiti 1915-34 The historical tie between debt and gunboat diplomacy is ugly, rooted in imperi...

Ep 73 ft. Marlene Daut

09 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Unprecedented and Odious Haitian Independence Debt Several prior episodes have explored aspects of the history of the Haitian Independence Debt...

Ep 72 ft. Kevin Washburn

02 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Can Borrowing Costs for Tribes be Reduced? Tribal governments operate under borrowing restrictions that seem quite onerous. For example, they are li...

Ep 71 ft. Mitu & Mark

25 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Sri Lanka, SriLankan Airlines, and... SriLankan Airlines used to be profitable, and one of us remembers it fondly. But those days are over, and the a...

Ep 70 ft. Mitu & Mark

18 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How to Destroy the Collective Action Clause? Do the latest state-of-the-art version of CACs -- which have become standard in international bonds sinc...

Ep 69 ft. David Jordan

11 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Why do tribal casinos pay so much to borrow? The study of lending markets often overlooks borrowing by tribal governments as well as borrowing by tr...

Ep 68 ft. Andres de la Cruz

04 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Legal Weeds of Sri Lanka's International Bonds The Sri Lankan debt crisis has deepened to the point that a restructuring seems inevitable, althou...

Ep 67 ft. Mitu & Mark

28 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Ukraine-Russia: Who Should Have Priority to Get at Frozen Russian Assets? Western governments have frozen over $300 billion in Russian assets. That's...