Griesa authorizes Citi to process payments of Argentine bonds

[forest444]

9. I should note, though,

that these bonds in particular aren't worthless at all. As Joseph Cotterill of the Financial Times noted about three weeks ago “Argentina finally made it: Argentina's 2033 restructured bonds are trading above par." Meaning, as you know, that they sell for more than 100 cents on the dollar.

It's just that vulture funds want 400 cents on the dollar - for bonds they didn't even buy from Argentina itself (in Singer's case they were purchased from a reseller for about 20 cents on the dollar in 2008, three years after Argentina emerged from default).

Buying bonds for the purpose of suing for more later is explicitly illegal under New York Law; but Griesa ruled that because the bonds were purchased "to make money (the ends), not for the lawsuit in itself (the means)", this law does not apply.

It's like telling a drug trafficker: "we realize you do this for the money, not the criminality in itself; your crimes are therefore not crimes at all."

The judge must be an avid Kafka reader, I'll give him that.