Clauses & Controversies
Episodes
Ep 66 ft. Deborah Zandstra
21 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Initiatives to Improve Sovereign Debt Markets Our guest is Deborah Zandstra of Clifford Chance, a key figure in the sovereign debt world who has bee...
Ep 65 ft. Mitu & Mark
14 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Russia-Ukraine Emergency Podcast 2: Subversive Drafting or Goofs The Russian international sovereign bonds, with their weird clauses, are a gift that...
Ep 64 ft. Mitu & Mark
07 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Is Russian Sovereign Debt Now Worthless? Sanctions imposed against the Russian Federation are denying it access to foreign exchange reserves, and Rus...
Ep 63 ft. Trang Nguyen
28 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sri Lanka on the Brink? Trang Nguyen, Executive Direction and Emerging Markets strategist at JP Morgan, joins us to discuss both the current state of...
Ep 62 ft. Benjamin Parkin
21 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Is There a Plan for Dealing with the Sri Lankan Debt? Sri Lanka is fast running out of foreign exchange reserves but maintains that it will pay all ...
Ep 61 ft. John Cochrane
14 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Should we worry about increasing global (and US) debt? We confess that we do worry. But we also have heard others say this worry is misplaced. Our gu...
Ep 60 ft. Steven Bodzin & Carla Dager
07 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What's going on with Venezuela? And can we use it to talk about Blue Bonds? Venezuela has been in and out of the news. A potential forced sale of CIT...
Ep 59 ft. Jill Dauchy
31 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Environmental Benefits of the Belize Restructuring There has been a lot of hype about the Belize restructuring, especially the issuance of a so-c...
Ep 58 ft. Elya Zhang
24 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The History Behind Lawsuits Over Old Chinese and Russian Sovereign Debt Lawsuits to enforce long-defaulted Chinese bonds (by an engineer in Alabama) ...
Ep 57 ft. Paul Stephan
17 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From Russia With ... Well, Frankly, A Bit of Concern Getting paid on an expropriation claim is difficult in the best of circumstances, even when the ...
Ep 56 ft. Antonia Stolper
10 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From Commercial Bank Loans to Blue Bonds Sovereign debt markets have evolved significantly over the years, from syndicated bank loans, to bonds, to t...
Ep 55 ft. Gunther Handl
18 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Does Haiti Have a Legal Right to Compensation from France? Two earlier C&C episodes explored aspects of the Haitian Independence Debt of 1825, in whi...
Ep 54 ft. Stephen Nelson
11 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Domestic Costs of Imposing Capital Controls - a Constraint on Sovereign Debtors? Stephen Nelson's (Northwestern) research explores a variety of t...
Ep 53 ft. Tess Wilkinson-Ryan and David Hoffman
20 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What Exactly is the Duty of Good Faith? Are the parties to sovereign debt contracts subject to a duty of good faith and fair dealing? If so, what doe...
Ep 52 ft. Scott Squires
13 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Province of Buenos Aires' Restructuring The recent restructuring of the Province of Buenos Aires' multi-billion dollar debt raises many questions...
Ep 51 ft. Thomas Laryea
06 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Restricting Trading in Venezuela’s Sovereign Bonds: Has it Worked? The Biden administration has continued the Trump administration’s strategy of ...
Ep 50 ft. Rachel Wellhausen
30 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What Do We Know About International Investment? What allows countries to borrow and to attract investment? Often the answer emphasizes the ability to...
Ep 49 ft. Lachlan Burn & Jeffrey Golden
23 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Financial Contract Design Lachlan Burn and Jeff Golden, formerly of Linklaters and Allen & Overy, are two of the most respected lawyers in the capit...
Ep 48 ft. Layna Mosley
17 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Local v. Foreign Bonds? One of the classic questions in sovereign debt is why and when do sovereigns choose to issue bonds under local parameters (e....
Ep 47 ft. Andrew Shutter
09 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Greek Restructuring of 2012 – Filling in the Gaps Greece’s restructuring of March 2012 was one of the biggest, deepest, and fastest in sovere...
Ep 46 ft. Mitu & Mark
02 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
(Why) Are ESG Sovereign Bonds (Such) Scams? Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing is white hot. Investors are clamoring for "green" b...
Ep 45 ft. Lupin Rahman
26 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Does a Good ESG Score Lower Sovereign Borrowing Costs, or Does Cheaper Credit Leave More Room to Do ESG? Lupin Rahman, senior economist at PIMCO, is ...
Ep 44 ft. Yesha Yadav
19 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What Does it Mean to Say the Treasury Market is Risk Free? The U.S. Treasury market is supposed to be boring and risk free. As a result, it is largel...
Ep 43 ft. Aitor Erce
12 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Sovereign Debt Acronym Show DSA, SDR, DSSI. Sovereign debt insiders love to throw acronyms around in conversation to make us outsiders feel like,...
Ep 42 ft. Didac Queralt
06 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Did External Finance Produce Weaker States? In the first era of bond finance (roughly 1820-1920), countries often pledged customs revenues and other ...
Ep 41 ft. Josefin Meyer
28 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How do Investors in Sovereign Bonds Fare? Josefin Meyer (Kiel Institute for the World Economy) is one of the young stars of the sovereign debt world....
Ep 40 ft. Anna Gelpern
24 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Veil Piercing and State-Owned Entities Disappointed creditors can attach a sovereign's assets when used for commercial activity in a foreign state. B...
Ep 39 ft. Juan Flores Zendejas
17 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Covid is Just Like the _______ Crisis In the current economic context, with many worried about the risk of widespread financial distress among emergi...
Ep 38 ft. Matthias Goldmann
10 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Can Courts Help Right Historical Wrongs? In the early 1900s, the first genocide of the 20th century occurred in what was then the colony of German S...
Ep 37 ft. Anna Gelpern & Christoph Trebesch
03 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How China Lends Anna Gelpern and Christoph Trebesch--along with co-authors Sebastian Horn, Scott Morris, and Brad Parks--have produced a truly unprec...
Ep 36 ft. Anne-Laure Delatte
26 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Why Is No One Worried About the Gargantuan Euro Area Sovereign Debt? Our guest is the brilliant French economist, Anne-Laure Delatte, who is worried ...
Ep 35 ft. Ben Heller
19 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Bendy Bonds Are Better (Say it Five Times Fast) Our guest this week is Ben Heller, one of the most insightful observers of the sovereign debt market...
Ep 34 Ft. Lee Buchheit
14 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Recent Sovereign Debt Drama. Plus: Zambia’s Weird Bond Contracts Are EU member states jointly and severally liable for EU bond debt? (No, of cours...
Ep 33 ft. Matt Wirz
12 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Green Bonds for Everyone! Matt Wirz (Wall Street Journal) helped uncover the Hunger Bond scandal in the Venezuelan debt. Conversations with Matt abou...
Ep 32 ft. Ingrid Wuerth
05 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Central Banks, Executive Power, and Protecting Sovereign Assets Central banks are a bit of a problem for the law of foreign sovereign immunity. From ...
Ep 31 ft. Mark Stumpf
29 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Value Recovery Instruments: A Contrarian View We often turn to veteran sovereign debt lawyer Mark Stumpf to help us understand the intricacies and h...
Ep 30 ft. Gregoire Mallard
22 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Post-Colonial Odious Debt Talk of odious debt generally asks whether the populace must repay money borrowed by a corrupt former dictator. The assump...
Ep 29 ft. Simon Hinrichsen
15 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Back Story of Iraq’s Debt Restructuring Iraq after Saddam Hussein had massive, patently unpayable debts. Creditors viewed Iraqi oil exports as ...
Ep 28 ft. Jacqueline Charles & Guy-Uriel Charles
08 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What Does the U.S. Owe Haiti for La Navasse? Sovereign debt and guano go together like ... they go together well, okay? Bird poop was once so valuabl...
Ep 27 ft. Tommy Stubbington
01 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Zambia's Default and Restructuring Prospects Zambia was the first African country to default on its debt in the wake of COVID-19. It has significant ...
Ep 26 ft. Pippa Morgan
22 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What Motivates China's Overseas Lending? Including lending by state owned enterprises, China appears to be the world’s biggest official creditor. C...
Ep 25 ft. Kim Oosterlinck
26 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Do Investors Care About Odious Debts? The Tsarist Russian government used borrowed funds to repress domestic political movements. Vichy France borro...
Ep 24 ft. Julia Rudolph
20 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Haiti’s Odious "Independence Debt" In 1825, France imposed on Haiti an indemnity obligation of 150 million francs, ostensibly to compensate French ...
Ep 23 ft. Lee Buchheit, Joyce Chang, and Jeromin Zettelmeyer
21 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Covid (and Other) Contingencies We close out 2020 with all-star guests Lee Buchheit, Joyce Chang, and Jeromin Zettelmeyer to discuss contingent debt ...
Ep 22 ft. Julia Mahoney & Ed Kitch
14 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Restructuring Uncle Sam's Debt All together now (in a smarmy drawl): "Families must balance their budget, why not countries?" Okay, that's a stupid t...
Ep 21 ft. Felix Salmon
07 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Best Crisis Management in HISTORY! Felix Salmon (Axios; Slate Money) knows more about financial markets than pretty much anyone we know. He joins us ...
Ep 20 ft. Jeromin Zettelmeyer
30 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Trees. Wrong. Barking Up. Jeromin Zettelmeyer has done foundational research on the economics and the law of sovereign debt. We discuss the G-20's "...
Ep 19 ft. Siobhan Morden
23 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A View From the Sell Side Our guest Siobhan Morden is one of the most respected and widely-read sell-side analysts in the sovereign debt markets. We ...
Ep 18 Ft. Yannis Manuelides
16 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Why Not Use GDP-Linked Bonds? Yannis Manuelides heads Allen & Overy’s Sovereigns and International Institutions practice group and has played a key...
Ep 17 Ft. Andy Hessick
09 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Judgments 1, CACs 0 If a bondholder sues and gets a judgment before a sovereign can restructure its debt, does the bondholder escape the restructurin...
Ep 16 ft. Elena Duggar
02 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Will Asking For Covid Assistance Cause a Ratings Downgrade? Earlier this year, the Official Sector put in place a debt relief program for the poorest...
Ep 15 ft. Elena Carletti, Paolo Colla & Steven Ongena
26 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Pricing Those Pesky CACs Do the legal provisions in a bond affect its price? If law matters then, at least in an efficient market, one would think th...
Ep 14 ft. Robin Wigglesworth
19 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What Lies Ahead? Italy can borrow for free in the middle of a pandemic and one of the worst economic crises on record. What’s going on? Have massi...
Ep 13 ft. Mark and Mitu
14 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What's Your Damage? When a sovereign defaults on its debt, what should investors recover in damages? It seems to us that the conventional answer to t...
Ep 12 ft. Patrick Bolton and Ugo Panizza
12 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What if we hit Another Sudden Stop? The sovereign debt markets hit a sudden stop in March 2020, where new funding to emerging market sovereigns ceas...
Ep 11 ft. Mark and Mitu
06 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This Episode Will Become Void in 3...2...1 Prescription clauses say bondholder claims are "void" or "prescribed" unless presented for payment within ...
Ep 10 ft. Joseph Cotterill
22 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
State Guarantees That Bite One in the Backside Our guest is legendary financial reporter, Joseph Cotterill, who famously chronicled the Pari Passu Sa...
Ep 9 Ft. Jim Ho
22 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Contracting for Disaster(s) Borrowers must pay. Period. Even a natural disaster probably won't excuse non-payment. And while loan contracts can provi...
Ep 8 ft. Anna Szymanski
14 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Sovereign Debt Seating Chart Needs Bigger Chairs Big investors have been the dominant force on the investor side in recent restructurings. Rather...
Ep 7 ft. Colby Smith
10 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Would you rather date Ecuador or Argentina? Neither can pay their debts. But one brings your parents flowers while the other gets drunk at your Mom’...
Ep 6 ft. Anna Gelpern
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How Did We Get the Crappy CAC? Argentina made a lot of investors mad by proposing (threatening?) to pursue a divide-and-conquer strategy in its ongoi...
Ep 5 ft. Eric Posner
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Why all the Sturm and Drang Over Force Majuere? Recently, thanks to COVID-19, there has been much talk about the otherwise generally obscure civil la...
Ep 4 ft. Noel Maurer
24 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Where Did All the Secured Loans Go? Once upon a time, many governments could borrow in foreign markets only if they pledged assets to back the loan....
Ep 3 ft. Gerard Magliocca
17 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Gold Clause Mumbo Jumbo We love to talk about the Gold Clause Cases from the 1930s and wonder why our colleagues are less enthusiastic. In this episo...
Ep 2 ft. Tracy Alloway, Lee Buchheit, Alex Xiao
17 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Imperial Chinese Bonds: Are They Coming Back to Life in 2020? Bloomberg’s Tracy Alloway, financial reporter extraordinaire, and sovereign debt gur...
Ep 1 ft. Mark Weidemaier
17 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Venezuela’s Oil Company is Up For Grabs – and the Absence of Ten Words in its Governing Law Clause May Decide Who Gets it The governing law claus...