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Ambito Financiero
Moves by vultures Ghana
 
Thursday, October 04, 2012
 
The government pointed at the vulture fund NML Elliott over the court decision that allowed the detaining of the Frigate Libertad in Ghana.  According to the Foreign Ministry, the fund “crossed a new limit in its attacks against Argentina” and accused that organization of maintaining “extortive and aggressive” attitudes against the country.
 
«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 filed by the NML Group before the courts of that country,” said the Foreign Ministry.
 
In a statement, the team led by Hector Timerman confirmed also that they had begun actions with the government of Ghana “to clarify the deception that the unscrupulous financiers have mounted, through a measure that is a violation of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic immunity.”  The ministry recalled that the vulture fund NML has its headquarters in the Cayman Islands, “a tax lair that it is worth recalling is a colony of Great Britain, from where those who don’t submit to the laws of any jurisdiction operate, and have been denounced both by the G-20 and the United Nations.” 
 
The NML Group, the ministry recalled, belongs to “international speculator” Paul Singer and is “the main financier of the lobby that operates in the courts and the Congress of the United States” under the name ATFA. 
 
 
Clarin
Foreign Ministry intervenes in the recovery of the Frigate Libertad
 
Thursday, October 04, 2012
 
By Natasha Niebieskikwait
 
While the Foreign Minister sent off a statement reporting in singular language that it had asked the government of Ghana to release the Frigate Libertad, it was negotiating against the clock over the amount of a bail.  The goal: the recover the symbolic ship in what was a resounding blow from the vulture funds, who managed through Ghanaian courts to grant an attachment of US$284 million plus another US$91 million in interest.
 
Clarin learned from very high level sources of the government – stuck yesterday in the conflict with the Border Police, the Coast Guard and the Armada – it is desperate because it doesn’t want to nor can it pay the attachment now.  But at the same time every day the Frigate spends in the port of Tema – where it arrived on Monday – the Argentine state must pay USS$49,000 in port charges.
 
As Clarin reported exclusively yesterday, the detention order on the emblematic teaching vessel of the Navy came from the Superior Court from the African country which has prohibited its movement from the port.  It departed on June 2 from Buenos Aires with 300 people on board.  Its detention was demanded by NML Capital Ltd., of Elliott Management, and Huntlaw Corporate Service, which represents investment funds that didn’t enter the foreign debt swap and is seeking to collect on court decisions in its favor obtained in New York courts.  Until last night, the Foreign Ministry was not reporting on the ship’s status nor that of its crew, while they were given a strict order not to talk to the press.  The same instruction was given to the diplomats at the Argentine embassy in Nigeria which attends to Argentine affairs in Ghana.
 
On Tuesday night in an interview with Clarin, authorities said that didn’t have “any information”, but the team of Hector Timerman issued a heated statement in which it called the detention of the ship a “devious attack from the vulture funds against Argentina.”  It said that it was due to a recourse from NML Group and that the ministry was making gestures to “clarify the deception that the unscrupulous financiers have mounted.”  The Ghanaian court measure is “a violation of the Vienna Convention.”
 
The statement is full of parallel content like the fact that it defines the Cayman Islands as a “tax lair” – the home of NML Group – and recalls that it is a “colony of Great Britain.”
 
 
La NacionThe Frigate Libertad, detained in Africa
 
Thursday, October 4, 2012
 
The government acknowledged yesterday that the Frigate Libertad, the teaching vessel of the Argentine Armada, has been detained in Ghana, on the western coast of Africa, out of a judicial recourse filed by a fund that hold Argentine bonds and didn’t enter the swap of debt in default.  The Argentine Foreign Ministry said that the judicial measure is a “devious attack” from the “vulture funds” made up of “unscrupulous financiers”.
 
The government said that the “lobbyists” that brought about the retention of the sailing vessel were those who “harassed” President Cristina Kirchner during her stay last week in New York, during the United Nations summit.
 
Sources from the navy said that the ship could resume its instructional voyage today with a destination of Luanda, Angola.
 
The director general of the port authority of Ghana, Richard Anamoo, confirmed that the ship was detained “by order of the Court”, according to AFP.  Anamoo said that “it is not that authorities of Ghana that have taken the decision to halt or detain the ship, but it has come from a judicial order.  The owners of the ship have to pay the money or defend themselves before the court.”
 
For Argentina – according to the statement issued yesterday by the Foreign Ministry – “the vulture funds have crossed a new limit in their attacks” on the country.
 
The official statement said that the Frigate Libertad was delayed by a recourse from NML Group, who it said was made up of “unscrupulous financiers that have mounted a deception.”  It said that it was a violation of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic immunity.
 
The Foreign Ministry said that “the vulture fund NML is based in the Cayman Islands, a tax lair that is a colony of Great Britain, from where those who do not submit to laws of any jurisdiction operate, and who have been denounced before the G-20 and the United Nations.”  It said that NML “belongs to the international speculator Paul Singer and is the main financier of the lobby that operates in the courts and the Congress of the United States under the name of ATFA (Task Force Argentina) to damage our country.”
 
According to the government, that group “disseminates false information for the use of some Argentine monopolistic press media with the goal of extorting Argentina with the ends of obtaining usurious profits from the purchase of Argentine bonds for pennies during the 2001 crisis and refusing to join the 93% of investors that agreed to the debt restructuring.”
 
And it said, in its accusation: “That group of lobbyists are the same that tried to harass President [Cristina Kirchner] during her recent trip to the United States, handing out aggressive fliers against the presidential investiture.”  It said that “another of its actions” was “to place a gigantic rate in the doorway of the Argentine embassy in Washington while our independence day was being celebrated.”
 
But it warned that “it’s the decision of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner not to bow to the international and local extortive attempts brought forth by the vulture funds, and will continue to denounce them in various forums.”
 
 
El Cronista
Foreign Ministry: ‘Vulture funds have crossed a new limit’”
 
Thursday, October 04, 2012
 
The government characterized as a “devious attack” by the vulture funds the detention in Ghana, Africa, of the Frigate Libertad, by a judicial recourse filed in that country by the holders of bonds that didn’t enter the swap of debt in default.
 
Through a statement, the Foreign Ministry said that “the lobbyists that brought forth the detention of the itinerate ship were those who harassed President Cristina Fernández in her stay last week in New York.”
 
“The vulture funds have crossed a new limit in their attacks on the Argentine Republican,” the Foreign Ministry said in the document, in which it made reference to the Frigate Libertad “having been delayed in the Republic of Ghana by a recourse filed by NML Group in the courts of that country.”
 
On that, the ministry warned that it already had taken steps with the government of the African nation to clarify the deception that “the unscrupulous financiers have mounted” and warned that “said measure is a violation of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic immunity.”
 
The bondholders are trying to attach the Frigate so that, this way, they can collect on rulings obtained in their favor in the New York courts.
 
The Foreign Ministry explained further that the fund is headquartered in the Cayman Islands, from where “those who don’t submit to laws of any jurisdiction operate and have been denounced both before the G-20 as well as the United Nations.  This group belongs to international speculator Paul Singer and is the main financier of the lobby that operates in the courts and the Congress of the United States with the name ATFA (Task Force Argentina) to damage the country.”
 
As such, from the Armada they said that the ship could depart today, continuing its instructional voyage with the destination of Luanda, Angola.
 
 
Pagina/12
Pirate speculators approaching
 
Thursday, October 04, 2012
 
The teaching vessel of the Argentine navy was victim of a maneuver of one of the big funds that eluded the swap to speculate with a bigger benefit in the courts.  The authorities of Ghana promised a resolution in two days.
 
“The vulture funds have crossed a new limit in their attacks on the Argentine Republic,” said the Foreign Ministry yesterday through a press release.  The new offensive from these financial pressure groups this time affected the frigate Libertad, a teaching vessel of the Argentine Armada, which was delayed two days ago in the Republic of Ghana “by a recourse filed by NML Group before the courts of that country.”  NML Capital Limited, of the financial mega-magnate Paul Singer, and Huntlaw Corporate Service, a group that legally represents these kinds of funds, asked for the detention of the ship to collect on what it claims from the courts of New York, where they obtained a favorable ruling for its holdings of defaulted Argentine bonds.  From the Foreign Ministry they explained to this newspaper that Foreign Minister Hector Timerman communicated with his counterpart in Ghana.  “The latter sent his apologies and promised that in two days the issue will be resolved,” said the source, playing down the drama of the facts, also saying that they are “assets not subject to embargo.”
 
The ship sailed on June 2 from the port of Buenos Aires, starting its traditional graduation voyage with the usual crew of 220 men and women, together with 110 students.  It’s a habitual passage around the entire Atlantic, arriving in different countries in South America, Europe and Africa.  This opportunity was the first in which the ship would visit Ghana, Angola and Namibia.  However, in the first of these destinations it received the order from the local Superior Court to delay the ship in the capital of the old English colony, in response to a filing from the vulture funds.
 
According to families of the crew, the personnel are not allowed to set foot on dry land.  “The crew is in a form of detention, they are not allowed to come onto land and this situation could be prolonged for ten days,” said Noemí Chocci, mother of one of the graduates, in a conversation with a radio station in the interior.  According to her, there is no direct communication: “You have to call the Libertad building, and then you can communicate with the frigate.”
 
The ministry led by Timerman, through a statement, argued that it’s a “devious attack” from the “vulture funds”, using false information.  “The vulture fund NML has its base in the Cayman Islands, a tax lair that is a colony of Great Britain, from which those who don’t submit to laws of any jurisdiction operate and have been denounced both to the G-20 and the United Nations,” said the text written by the ministry.  “It puts out false information for the use of some Argentine monopolistic press media with the goal of extorting Argentina with the end of obtaining usurious profits from the purchase of Argentine bonds for pennies during the 2001 crisis, and refusing to join the 93% of investors that agreed to the debt restructuring,” the statement added.
 
“Said measure is a violation of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic immunity,” the ministry complained, confirming that it has already initiated “moves with the government of the African nation to clarify the deception that the unscrupulous financiers have mounted.”  Timerman was calm on the issue getting a rapid resolution, after taking up the issue with his Ghanaian counterpart, who’d assured him that he’d intercede with the court of his country. 
 
After the two Argentine debt restructurings, the so-called vulture funds ended up with 8% of the debt in default, and are suing to get recognition of the totality of the technical value of their holdings – some US$3.6 billion – and interest.  These funds operate from tax havens so as to not pay taxes and their work consists of weakening the image of countries until they obtain a ruling from some permeable court that agrees with them, which they’ve done thanks to the resources that circulate in the lobbying of the U.S. Congress and in the media.  “That group of lobbyists are the same that tried to harass the President during her recent trip to the United States, handing out aggressive fliers against the presidential investiture,” the ministry said.
 
In response to the Foreign Ministry’s statement, American Task Force Argentina (ATFA) accused Argentina of “mocking the law.”  ATFA is the façade for the lobby of NML and EM in Washington.  The entity has as its president Robert Shapiro, an ex-official of the Clinton administration, now a representative of the interests of the vulture funds.  ATFA’s actions against Argentina represent a lobby expenditure of more than US$3 million, and they managed to temporarily freeze funds of the Central Bank and Banco Nacion in New York.  Between 2007 and 2010 the government avoided flying the official plane Tango 01 to the United States and Germany so that it would not be attached. 
 
 
Financial Times
 
Thursday, October 04, 2012
 
By Kate Mackenzie
 
An Argentine naval vessel crewed by more than 200 sailors has been seized in Ghana as part of an attempt by the US hedge fund Elliott Capital Management to collect on bonds on which Buenos Aires defaulted in 2001.
 
A Ghanaian court ordered an injunction and interim preservation order against the ARA Libertad, a 100-metre long tall ship, following an application by Elliott subsidiary NML Capital on Tuesday.
 
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.
 
 
Bloomberg
 
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
 
By Eliana Raszewski
 
Argentina’s Foreign Ministry accused a Ghanaian court of violating rules of diplomatic immunity after it blocked an Argentine naval training ship from leaving one of the African nation’s ports.
 
The ruling, in response to a petition from NML Capital Ltd., an investment fund that owns Argentina’s defaulted bonds, has been challenged by the South American nation’s government, the ministry said in an e-mail statement today.
 
Argentina won’t give in to “attempts at international and local extortion by vulture funds,” the ministry said.
 
NML and other holders of bonds that weren’t swapped in two restructurings of the $95 billion of debt on which Argentina defaulted in late 2001, are seeking to recover the full value of the securities. About 94 percent of the defaulted bonds were restructured in 2005 and 2010, giving creditors about 30 cents on the dollar.
 
 
Business Insider
 
Thursday, October 04, 2012
 
By Joe Weisenthal
 
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 it's 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 pay 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.

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