Equity Receiverships and Sovereign Debt

Observers of sovereign debt markets have long lamented the inability to impose restructuring terms on dissenting creditors. Indeed, there are currently several bills pending – some of which are utterly bonkers, in our view – in New York to change the law in ways that will limit holdout activity in sovereign debt cases. But what if the tools to comprehensively restructure sovereign debt are already there in New York law? Our guest, Nate Oman (William and Mary) has a new paper, Restructuring Ruritania (link below), examining the potential use of the equity receivership in this context. The equity receivership has a long history (e.g., railroad reorganizations) and has been discussed as a potential solution to state debt crises and other areas. We talk to Nate about what an equity receivership would look like in the sovereign debt context and the advantages (and limitations) it offers.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4656147

Producer: Leanna Doty