Frigate Libertad:
La Nacion: “The Frigate Libertad remains in Ghana: court rules against Argentina”
La Nacion: “A trip with surprises and a cost of US$50,000 a day”
MercoPress: “Argentina sends top level political mission to Ghana after the ARA Libertad”
The Economist: “Caught napping”
New York Observer: “Hedge Fund Manager Scores Point Against Argentinean Navy; JP Morgan’s Third-Quarter Profit Rises: Roundup”
StarTribune: “Investor demands $20 million for tall ship; Argentina says Ghana ruling could harm relations”
Forbes: “No Liberty for Libertad: Argentina’s Battle With Hedge Fund Billionaire for Navy Vessel Continues”
The Wall Street Journal: “2nd Update: Argentine Navy Ship Remains Impounded in Ghana”
The Wall Street Journal: “Ghana ‘violating intl norms’ over ship: Argentina”
Fox Business: “Ghana court rules Argentine naval ship seizure was legal”
Financial Times: “Ghana: ship’s going nowhere (for now)”
The Epoch Times: “Ghana Court: Don’t Free Argentine Warship”
New York Post: “Hedge fund honcho Singer can hold Argentina’s ship, court rules”
IMF:
Ambito Financiero: “Heavyweights at the IMF: the Creditors vs. Debtors match is replayed”
· AF
ran a correspondent’s sidebar from the IMF/World Bank summit, entitled
“Avatars in Tokyo”, with a series of bulleted items. The third item:
“Just
the mention of the word ‘Argentina’ in that IIF seminar set off strong
criticism among the attendees over the local management of the economy.
Bankers and investors didn’t miss the chance to allude to – at times
even with animosity or oral belligerence – the latest measures adopted.
An economic report compiled by Martín Castellano, Ramón Aracena and
Todd Martinez, of the IIF, said it all with its title: ‘Argentina is
playing with fire’.”
Argentine Economy:
MercoPress: “Argentina inflation in nine months of 2012 reached 18%, says “Congress Index”
NASDAQ: “SURVEY: Argentina Expected to Say 12-Month Inflation 9.9% in Sept.”
The Wall Street Journal: “S&P Keeps Argentina’s T&C Rating AT ‘B’ After Chaco Payment”
Buenos Aires Herald: “‘CB is not restricting provinces’ access to dollars’”
· La
Nacion reports that the Global Editors Network (GEN), based in Paris,
has called on the media of the world to focus its attention on the
December 7 deadline for the implementation of Argentina’s Media Law,
calling it “the deadline for freedom of the press.”
Global Relations:
MercoPress: “Argentine energy policy further limits methanol production in south Chile”
Freedom of the Press:
MercoPress: “Global editors warn on ongoing campaign in Argentina against independent media”
Huffington Post: “Freedom of Press as Understood by the Argentine Media Monopoly”
· La
Nacion reports that the Global Editors Network (GEN), based in Paris,
has called on the media of the world to focus its attention on the
December 7 deadline for the implementation of Argentina’s Media Law,
calling it “the deadline for freedom of the press.”
JORGE ARGUELLO on Twitter and Blog:
· He
tweeted several items about the vice-presidential debate in the U.S.,
noting the mention that both candidates are Catholic, and were asked
their views on abortion (a hot topic in Argentina currently).
TRENDING TOPICS/ARGENTINA on Twitter:
· Among the top ten are Nobel Peace Prize (6), La Union Europea (7) and Biden (8)
La Nacion
The Frigate Libertad remains in Ghana: court rules against Argentina
Friday, October 12, 2012
By Martin Dinatale
In
the last place you’d think in the world, and with perhaps one of the
most symbolic assets of Argentina’s patrimony, the government yesterday
suffered a heavy international legal blow: a judge in Ghana determined
that the Frigate Libertad could not sail from the port of Tema, where it
has been anchored for the last 10 days, over a complaint against the
Argentine state that the vulture funds of the United States brought.
The
legal decision in Ghana echoed a request issued by a New York court and
is the first step for a possible attachment of assets from the
Argentine state. Thus it would be the first concrete action against the
Casa Rosada, which refuses to pay the totality of the bonds to the
creditors.
The
government’s concern reached such depths that last night it decided to
send Vice Foreign Minister Eduardo Zuain and Vice Defense Minister
Alfredo Forti to Ghana with the intention of avoiding the attachment of
the ship in which 289 sailors are stranded. The order that President
Cristina Kirchner issued to her envoys was blunt: “Argentina will not
surrender its sovereignty to the vulture funds”.
However,
the decision by Judge Richard Adjei Frimpong, of the Commercial Court
of Accra, seems definitive on the request for attachment from NML
Capital Ltd., a branch of the firm Elliott Management. The judge in
Ghana determined that the Argentine ship lacks immunity and in this
manner he blocked it from sailing from the port of Tema.
The
Foreign Ministry and the Defense Ministry tried in vain through the
diplomatic route to avoid the judicial decision. Attorney Larry Otoo,
contracted by Argentina in New York, and Argentina’s ambassador to
Nigeria, Susana Pataro, who went to Ghana, also didn’t manage to avoid
the decision by JudgeFrimpong.
"The
situation is very complicated and all indications are that the path to
an attachment of assets is inevitable,” said a qualified source at the
Foreign Ministry to LA NACION, who said there was a climate of
nervousness and unease in the Palacio San Martín yesterday.
Towards
the evening, the situation became irreversible and the reports sent by
Ambassador Pataro were discouraging. Argentina filed a complaint
against the detention of the ship to claim sovereign immunity due to its
nature as a military ship that cannot be the object of creditors. But
the Ghanaian court ruling rejected this argument. “The defense has made
it clear in the transaction agreement that such immunity was renounced
and from my point of view the action that the plaintiff seeks complies
with the law,” said Judge Frimpong.
Ace
Ankomah, attorney for NML Capital, told Reuters that his clients were
seeking a deposit for at least US$20 million before the ship is released
and said that Argentina owes his clients “more than US$300 million”.
But in Buenos Aires there were orders to reject the payment of bail and
in a statement from the Foreign Ministry and the Defense Ministry it was
said that Argentina will insist on the judicial route for recovering
the ship.
"With
this measure, which compromises Ghana’s international responsibility,
the judicial issue adds a political dimension that affects bilateral
relations,” warned the government. The government’s statement points
out that it “trusts that the response” from Ghana “will allow the
controversy to be brought to a swift end.” But it warned that if not,
it will use “all available resources, both in the bilateral and
international arena, for the acknowledgement of its sovereign rights.”
Last night, Argentina’s strategy was not known. It was only known that
together with Zuain and Forti would travel a grou pof diplomats from the
legal section of the Foreign Ministry. The government limited itself
to saying that Ghana’s decision “violates international law, rooted in a
lawsuit filed by speculative funds with bonds in default.”
In
that sense, the Casa Rosada understood that “international rules
enshrine immunities that the ship enjoys as a war ship.” Thus, the
Argentine foreign ministry lamented that the Accra judge had taken the
arguments of NML as valid to give way to what it considers an
“illegitimate attachment” of the ship.
As
an extreme measure under consideration, there is the possibility that
the next step in the Ghana courts would be to accept the request of the
bondholders to put the ship up for auction. It’s not clear if that
decision would fall to the Ghana court. Nor is the monetary value of
the Frigate Libertad defined, beyond which it is considered an
emblematic asset of Argentine patrimony. It’s only known that since
it’s been held under judicial order in the port of Tema for 10 days, the
ship has had to pay US$50,000 in daily maintenance. The government
said yesterday that U.S. Judge Thomas Griesa, who issued the ruling that
is trying to be executed in Ghana, ruled in September 2008 against NML
by excluding from the execution of the sentence “all property that is
found or is understood to be used in connection with military activity
or that is under the control of a military or defense agency” by not
being subject to embargo.
The
Frigate Liberty sailed on June 2 from Buenos Aires. Fifteen days ago
it was in Senegal and had no legal problem at all. After its stop in
Ghana it was scheduled to go to Angola.
Yesterday,
in the United States the holders of bonds in default from Argentina
celebrated the Ghana decision. “One must applaud the authorities in
Ghana. To maintain the rule of law speaks well of that country,” said
Robert Raben, of American Task Force Argentina, one of the most active
pressure groups from the American creditors. The Casa Rosada said that
the fight with the vulture funds “is not an issue of accountability but
of sovereignty.”
With collaboration of Silvia Pisani from Washington
La Nacion
A trip with surprises and a cost of US $50,000 a day
Friday, October 12, 2012
By Mariano De Vedia
The
four days that the Frigate Libertad had been scheduled to remain in
Ghana have tripled. And the cost for continuing to be docked in the
local port of Tema, estimated at 50,000 dollars a day, grows at the rate
of a taxi meter.
Far
from the judicial struggles, but uneasy from the detention, the 289
officials, subofficials and marines that since June 2 have been on the
43rd instructional trip of the teaching vessel from the navy, together
with 23 Uruguayan and Chilean graduates and 13 guests, are trying to put
themselves above the emergency they didn’t prepare for and in which
they don’t have any room to act.
"The
sailors prepared us for an emergency and we’re trained for
contingencies on the high sea. This is unprecedented,” said naval
machinist Fernando Morales to LA NACION, a veteran of the Malvinas and
vice president of the Argentine Naval League, which is following
attentively each news bulletin from Ghana from Buenos Aires.
The
cost of US$ 50,000 per day, he said, is more than the US$30,000 of any
merchant ship, while they navigate with less than 20 crew members.
The
frigate already docked in 11 ports (Salvador, Lisbom, Cádiz,
Casablanca, Dakar and Tema, among others) and it’s the first time that
Ghana has been on the itinerary. “The travel plan is decided by the
Defense and Foreign ministries, but there is always the political
decision to prioritize the relations with this or that country or
region,” said an experienced military source to LA NACION. This year
priority was given to the South Atlantic and African countries.
In
normal conditions, the sailors spend their day amidst studies, work and
recreation. “The emergency altered the route, but also academic
activities are held on board, while securely reviewing navigation
practices,” Morales said.
"The
instruction is complemented, for example, with tasks of maintenance of
machines and motors, short maneuvers and smaller embarkations, and there
is no lack of sports,” said the sailor, recalling that one fo the most
valuable missions of the trip is the training in culture of work and
teamwork.
Arriving
at the port of Paramaibo, in Suriname, the subofficials Ivana Vanesa
González and Gabriela Carolemos –two of the 15 women that make up the
crew – spoke of their experience to La Gaceta Marinera, the navy’s
official newspaper. “It was the first time that I got to handle a real
maneuver and I didn’t feel nerves or vertigo,” said González, who has
second class grade.
Sources
from the navy confirmed that all are free to move about, despite the
detention of the ship. “The crew is not detained. They leave the ship
and move freely without inconveniences,” said Morales. And he said that
the crew has mini-buses at its disposal to go back and forth to
different parts of the city.
"There
is no danger of ending up without provisions. The ship has logistical
supplies and there is no risk of running out,” said the leader of the
Naval League. He estimated that if the detention is prolonged, it might
be needed to repatriate the cadets, but that would be a decision of the
Foreign and Defense ministries. “For the moment, they have not
announced a Plan B,” he said.
If
the crew returns, a minimum security allocation must be left behind
with capacity to navigate the ship, they said at the Navy.
"There
are no precedents of attachment of a military ship. It’s prohibited by
the International Convention of the Law of the Sea. It couldn’t be
used even with Great Britain, over the Malvinas conflict,” Morales
concluded, as he awaited news.
MercoPress
Friday, October 12, 2012
Deputy
Foreign minister Eduardo Zuaim and Alfredo Forti are on their way to
Accra where they will try to convince government and judicial
authorities to release the vessel arguing that the seizure is contrary
to international law and conventions.
On
Thursday an Accra court rejected the plea put forward by Argentina to
release the ARA Libertad training ship, which has been detained with its
crew since October 2nd.
“There
are no sufficient grounds for the plaintiff (Argentina) to disallow a
court sentence. The motion has been rejected,” stated Judge Richard
Adjei Frimpong, of the Accra Commercial Tribunal.
The Economist
Friday, October 12, 2012
WHEN
the Libertad, an Argentine frigate used for training naval cadets,
arrived in Ghana on October 1st, the 220 crew members and 110 students
on board expected a warm welcome. They had been greeted by their
national anthem in Venezuela and invited to play a football match in
Portugal. But officials in the port of Tema detained the ship, executing
a legal injunction obtained by an American hedge fund.
The
Libertad was the latest in a line of Argentine assets that the
government’s creditors have tried to snatch. In 2001 the country ceased
payment on $81 billion of bonds. Their price plunged, letting
risk-seeking investors buy them for pennies.
New York Observer
Friday, October 12, 2012
By Patrick Clark
Naval
enthusiast Paul Singer of Elliott Management and secretive Mexican
financier David Martinez are still battling in court, according to The
New York Times. Mr. Martinez is said to have a $140 million painting by
Jackson Pollock in his Time Warner Center apartment, but no one is
willing to stake their name on it. Also unconfirmed: Mr. Singer has
plans to squeeze a 100-foot tall sailing ship into a giant glass bottle.
Which
is to say, a court in Ghana ruled in favor of Mr. Singer yesterday,
affirming the hedge fund manager’s right to seize a training ship owned
by the Argentinean navy over unpaid sovereign bonds. The Elliott
Management affiliate contesting the issue is believed to be asking $20
million to return the three-masted frigate.
StarTribune
Thursday, October 11, 2012
ACCRA,
Ghana - International investors put a $20 million price tag on an
Argentine navy training ship Thursday after a judge in Ghana ruled that
the ARA Libertad cannot set sail until the South American country
settles claims for unpaid debts.
The
U.S. creditors are demanding payment in full on Argentine bonds for
which most investors accepted 30 cents on the dollar in 2005.
Justice
Richard Agyei-Frimpong had ordered the tall sailing ship held at Tema
harbor days earlier after creditors cited judgments in the U.S. and
Britain approving the seizure of Argentine assets anywhere in the world.
On Thursday, he said Argentina failed to persuade him to remove the
injunction.
Argentina's
government said the ruling violates international norms as well as
rulings by judges in the U.S., Germany and France that found Argentine
military vessels immune from the seizures.
Forbes
Thursday, October 11, 2012
The
incredible story of the Argentine vessel detained in Ghana at the
request of a hedge fund tied to billionaire Paul Singer continues. On
Thursday, a court in Ghana rejected the Argentine state’s request to
grant the Fragata Libertad diplomatic immunity, despite it being a
military ship. NML Capital, the hedge fund, is looking to extract
payment from the Argentine state on sovereign bonds that were part of
the largest sovereign debt default in 2001 and 2002. The Administration
of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner called Singer’s Elliott Capital a
“vulture fund” and accused it of using immoral and “usurious practices,”
while claiming the vessel is protected by immunity granted by the
Vienna Convention.
The Wall Street Journal
Thursday, October 11, 2012
By Shane Romig
BUENOS
AIRES--An Argentine Navy cadet-training ship will remain in Ghana after
a court in the West African country rejected Argentina's appeal of an
order detaining the vessel in a dispute with creditors.
Argentina
argued the three-masted sailing ship ARA Libertad sailed to Ghana to
perform military functions and United Nations conventions protect it
from seizure.
Ghana
commercial court judge Richard Adjei-Frimpong disagreed with that
argument Thursday, saying in his ruling that Ghanaian law doesn't
protect military assets.
On
Oct. 2, the judge ordered the 130-meter long ARA Libertad held at the
Port of Tema until Argentina honors U.S. judicial rulings that awarded
about $1.6 billion to Elliott Management Corp.'s NML Capital Ltd.
The Wall Street Journal
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Argentina's
defense ministry on Thursday accused Ghana of violating "international
norms" by refusing to release one of its warships and said it was
sending two senior officials to Accra for talks.
Earlier
in the day, a judge in Ghana rejected a bid by Buenos Aires to have one
of its warships released from a port near Accra, where it is being held
under a court order linked to a debt dispute.
"This
decision violates international norms which protect the immunity to
which this ship is entitled as a warship of the Argentine Republic," the
defense ministry said.
Fox Business
Thursday, October 11, 2012
By Kwasi Kpodo
ACCRA
– A court in Ghana upheld as legal on Thursday the detention of an
Argentine naval vessel seized under a court order by creditors pursuing
the South American nation over its 2002 debt default.
Argentina
declared a sovereign default a decade ago and now faces a raft of
lawsuits in U.S. courts by bondholders seeking state asset freezes to
recover the value of defaulted bonds.
The
Libertad, a navy frigate with 200 crew, was detained in Ghana's eastern
port of Tema on October 2 under a court order sought by NML Capital
Ltd, an affiliate of the investment firm Elliott Management.
Financial Times
Thursday, October 11, 2012
By Rob Minto
A
court in Ghana has rejected an appeal by Argentina to release the navy
vessel ARA Libertad, after the ship was seized last week at the request
of NML Capital, a hedge fund.
Quick
recap: NML is run by Elliott Management, a hedge fund founded by Paul
Singer. The fund lost out in Argentina’s bond default of 2001, and has
been tracking the course of the Libertad, 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 Epoch Times
Thursday, October 11, 2012
By Alex Johnston
A
court in Ghana ruled Thursday that the country should not allow an
Argentine naval ship and its crew to leave, after claims against
Argentina by a U.S.-based creditor.
The
Libertad training ship has been detained in a port near Accra, the
capital of Ghana, since last week, through the actions of U.S. hedge
fund Elliott Management, attempting to collect a debt from Argentina.
There are more than 200 crew members on the vessel.
“There
are no sufficient grounds for the plaintiff [Argentina] to disallow a
court sentence. The motion has been rejected,” Accra Commercial Tribunal
Judge Richard Adjei Frimpong said, according to the Buenos Aires
Herald.
The Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority said they will hand over the ship to Argentina if they get a court order.
New York Post
Thursday, October 11, 2012
By Kaja Whitehouse
That’s Captain Singer to you!
New
York hedge-fund billionaire Paul Singer gets to hold on to Argentina’s
prized navy vessel, the ARA Libertad, a Ghana court ruled today.
The
court ordered the ship to be detained at port in Ghana’s capital city
until it can rule on whether Argentina waived its sovereign rights on
its defaulted debt.
Until
then, Singer will be captain of the ship, which docked in Accra last
week as part of a good-will tour carrying some 70 navy cadets and more
than 200 passengers.
Ambito Financiero
Heavyweights at the IMF: the Creditors vs. Debtors match is replayed
Friday, October 12, 2012
Tokyo
(Special Report) – It was a variant of the existing battle between the
Davos Economic Forum and the Social Forum of Porto Alegre. Yesterday,
at the Tokyo Palace Hotel there was a seminar about restructuring of
debt by countries organized by the Institute of International Finance
(which is made up of the main banks on the planet) and which included
the presence of various experts in the area and the representative of
the bondholders or creditors, Hans Hume. But in parallel there was
another organized by the NGOs at the Tokyo International Forum, in which
Finance Secretary Adrian Cosentino participated, and in which an
atmosphere that was anti-adjustments and pro-defense of debtors could be
breathed in.
The
first of them had an audience of 500 people, all of them members of the
IIF. As always, Hume railed in various parts of his speech against
Argentina saying that “it’s not better after a default and a strong
haircut.” According to his view, “Argentina has no access to
international credit” and even mentioned, one could say even celebrated,
the current attachment in Ghana on the Libertad. Also speaking during
that part of the IIF seminar was former assistant Treasury secretary of
the United States, David Mulford, today vice chairman of Credit Suisse.
He avoided speaking about Argentina, as he has a case pending over the
mega-swap by Cavallo in 2001, but he spoke of Greece. “The
restructuring that was done had an excessive charge on the private
sector while other actors like the European Central Bank didn’t have
one. It sought to get the country to again have access to the capital
markets and that didn’t happen for the excessive pressure that was put
on the private sector.” What Mulford was saying is that private
investors didn’t return to betting when then knew that there would be
privileged creditors always collecting before they would, like the BCE.
Noisy
Less
formal and more noisy was the seminar organized by different NGOs like
Jubilee USA, which proposes the forgiveness of debts and a halt to
cuts. In addition to Cosentino, there was also Norwegian Development
Minister Heckki Holmas; German Finance Minister Ludger Schuknecht; and
Yuefen Li, of UNCTAD. The Argentine finance secretary spoke about the
process of Argentina’s debt restructuring and its diminishment.
In
addition to the numbers that are habitually presented on the country’s
debt today, the variation of GDP and the relation between both
variables, he referred to “the existing hole in the international
financial architecture for an adequate treatment of sovereign debt
restructuring, a mechanism that does exist for companies.” On that he
said that despite having achieved a high 93% adhesion in the debt swaps,
“the country has to deal with the holdouts, the vulture funds.”
MercoPress
Friday, October 12, 2012
The
data was presented at Congress by lawmakers Federico Pinedo, Pablo
Tonelli, Paula Bertol (PRO), Ricardo Buryaile, Elsa Álvarez, Julio
Martínez (UCR), Eduardo Amadeo (Peronist Front) and Patricia Bullrich
(Unión por Todos).
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