Sovereign Default and Portfolio Investor's remedies: The Greek Default

Abstract

In recent years, there have been many incidents of sovereign default that have exposed bondholders to huge financial damage, without “leaving room” for any effective remedy. Indeed, the recent case of Argentina has demonstrated investors’ difficulties in finding sufficient remedies to mediate their losses on account of the lack of a specific substantive and procedural framework to regulate this type of differences. Now, investors are faced with the largest case of sovereign default in recent times, namely the Greek haircut of March 9th 2012. The thesis, attempts to explore the remedies available to investor’s following such haircut taking into account the legal course followed by investors’ in previous cases of sovereign default, especially in the case of Argentina. This thesis shall explore investors’ remedies under three legal contexts, namely under Investments Treaties, European Law and under Credit Default Swaps Agreements, while an attempt is being made to also briefly explore some of the procedural issues that investors would be facing in any one of these contexts. The thesis aims to be a practical guide for investors in the current sovereign default, and be used as basis for the creation of an effective legal solution/framework for settlement of sovereign default’ disputes in the future.