A Good Week for Vulture Funds

Earlier this week, Argentina reached an agreement with a group of U.S.-based hedge funds that sued the country more than a decade ago over billions of dollars in unpaid debt. The dispute was easily one of the longest, most litigious battles over sovereign debt in modern memory, and it never lacked for hijinks. In 2012, a subsidiary of Elliott Management Corporation—the twenty-billion-dollar hedge fund led by Paul Singer—persuaded a judge to allow the seizure of an Argentine naval vessel docked in a port in Ghana, as part of an effort to tie up Argentina’s assets and force its political leaders to the negotiating table. The next year, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, a left-wing populist who was then President of Argentina, conducted official business aboard a commercial jet in order to avoid the embarrassment of having her own plane impounded.