For those who don't know what the "Greece" problem in Europe is about - here's the explanation

[dkf]

7. The swap has gone through with CDS's triggered.

NEW YORK—Payouts on a net $3.2 billion of insurance-like contracts designed to protect against losses on Greek sovereign debt have been triggered, after the country forced certain private creditors into its debt restructuring who did not want to accept the terms of the deal, a committee of dealers and investors decided Friday.

The request made early Friday to the special committee of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, which rules on such matters for the credit-default swaps market, was made following Greece's use of so-called collective-action clauses in its domestic-law bonds.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204603004577271712189185578.html

The Greek government was able to legally strong-arm most of its private bondholders into accepting the debt reduction deal it completed Friday. But next time — and experts predict there will almost certainly be a next time — Greece might have much less leverage.

That’s because as a result of Friday’s deal, the bulk of Athens’s 260.2 billion euros ($341 billion) in remaining government debt will now be held by the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the individual European nations that have lent Greece money and contributed to the region’s bailout fund.

Politically, Greece would be hard-pressed to force debt losses on such a formidable international group, the way it did with the private banks and hedge funds that have just been forced to accept a 75 percent loss on their Greek bond holdings. Greece’s main creditors, in effect, are now foreign taxpayers — who are likely to be much less malleable than the private creditors if Greece needs to renegotiate its staggering debt load a year or two down the road.

“From now on, whatever happens in Greece, it will be a matter between Greece and the taxpayers of the rest of the euro area,” said Jacob F. Kirkegaard, an analyst at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/10/business/global/greece-debt-restructuring-deal-private-lenders.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print