PRESS RELEASE

Argentina Launches Tough Legal Offensive

Aug. 6, 2014 (EIRNS)—Argentina’s National Securities Commission (CNV) filed a report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Aug. 4, requesting both information and an investigation into possible fraud by Elliott Management, owner of the NML Capital vulture fund, related to the Aug. 1 declaration by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) that Argentina is in default.

The CNV asks how it is possible that Elliott can litigate in court for payment on the defaulted bonds it possesses, and at the same time sit on the ISDA committee that declared the country in default and collect on credit default swaps in its possession.

According to CNV president Alejandro Vanoli, the purpose of the filing with the SEC is to “determine whether there was a possible conflict of interest and market manipulation on the part of a group of bondholders, among which is Elliott Management Corporation.” The daily Página 12 reported on Aug. 5 that Argentina wants the SEC to investigate whether there was use of insider information and manipulation of the prices of the bonds currently being litigated in Judge Thomas Griesa’s court by NML and other vultures. Vanoli said there is more than enough evidence to suggest “serious speculative maneuvers” by both Judge Griesa and the vultures, ultimately intended to “produce the conditions for collection” of credit default swaps.

The filing with the SEC is the first step in Argentina’s international offensive to expose the vulture funds’ predatory global operations, which threaten other sovereign debt restructurings and particularly prey on poorer nations. Oscar Parilli, Secretary General to the Presidency, told Página 12 that “we are going to go to all international venues to denounce and expose that what the vulture funds have done is an absolute barbarity.” Describing the vultures appropriately as “the scabies of the international financial system,” he warned that while they prey on and exploit weak countries, such as those in Africa, in Argentina they have found a government “that will not allow itself to be trampled on.” They will not force Argentina to its knees, he admonished.