A Hedge Fund Has Physically Taken Control Of A Ship Belonging To Argentina's Navy

A Hedge Fund Has Physically Taken Control Of A Ship Belonging To Argentina's Navy









http://goo.gl/xN7
A Hedge Fund Has Physically Taken Control Of A Ship Belonging To Argentina's Navy
By Joe Weisenthal
Oct. 4, 2012, 5:28 AM

Wikimedia Commons

The above ship is the ARA Libertad, a training ship owned by the Argentine navy.

And now it's been seized. By a hedge fund. While it was docked in Ghana.

Why? Because Argentina is in a long legal battle with the hedge fund
Elliott Capital Management, which has been trying for years and years to
get Argentina to pay a 2001 bond it owes in full. Because recently won a
court judgment saying that Argentina owes it money, it was able to get
an injunction from the government of
Ghana saying it's entitled to take the ship.


The FT's Sam Jones and Jude Webber report:


The hedge fund, run by the US billionaire Paul Singer, has been closely
monitoring the course of the Libertad, according to sources familiar
with the firm.

Elliott had been waiting for the ship to stop in a port where it would
have a chance to enforce legal judgments previously awarded by UK and US
courts. The hedge fund declined to comment.

The whole thing is quite dramatic.

There were apparently 200 navy members on board the ship, according to Argentine news outlet Clarin.com.

According to reports, Argentina will be able to get this ship back if it
pays an unspecified amount in bond (basically bailing it out).

Here's the full statement from the Argentine government, via Rolf`s Griechenland Blog:

The vulture funds have crossed a new limit in their attacks on the
Argentine Republic. The Frigate Libertad has been held in the Republic
of Ghana over a recourse presented by NML Group before the courts of
that country. The Argentine Foreign Ministry has already taken steps
with the African nation’s government to clear up the deception that the
unscrupulous financiers have mounted. That measure is in violation of
the Vienna Convention on diplomatic immunity.

The vulture fund NML has its headquarters in the Cayman Island, a
fiscal lair that it’s worth recalling is a colony of Great Britain, from
which those who don’t submit themselves to the laws of any jurisdiction
operate and they’ve been denounced both by the G-20 and the United
Nations.


That group of lobbyists are the same that tried to harass the President
during her recent trip to the United States passing out aggressive
fliers against the presidential investiture. Another of its actions was
to place a gigantic rat in the doorway of the Argentine embassy in
Washington when the anniversary of our independence was being
celebrated.


The Foreign Ministry reiterates that it is the decision of President
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to not bow before the international and
local attempts at extortion that have been brought forth by the vulture
funds and will continue to denounce them in various forums such as the
G-20, the United Nations, CELAC, UNASUR and MERCOSUR, FATF and the other
multilateral organizations.

This really seems like the ultimate 21st century finance story.







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Labels:
Agentina,
ARA Libertad,
Argentine Navy,
Elliott Capital Management,
Hedgefund,
Navy

Thanks to: http://americankabuki.blogspot.com