U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa yesterday held Argentina in contempt of court, saying that the republic was trying to find ways to circumvent a prior order requiring it pay holdout bondholders at the same time as other creditors who restructured their debt in recent years, Reuters reported yesterday. Judge Griesa deferred a decision on imposing sanctions against Argentina to a later date. But he did say that the "problem is that the republic of Argentina has been and is now taking steps in an attempt to evade critical parts of" his injunction. Argentina's government enacted a new law recently to get around a court ruling saying that it must pay more than $1.3 billion to holdout hedge funds who rejected the country's debt restructuring agreements in 2005 and 2010. The country defaulted on more than $100 billion in debt more than a decade ago.
