Daniel Pollack, the court-appointed mediator in the debt dispute between Argentina and holdout creditors, has been given broad authority to grant other investors a seat at the negotiating table in an effort to agree on a comprehensive settlement, Reuters reported today. U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa issued the order yesterday giving Pollack, known officially as the Special Master, the power to choose other investors, who have sued Argentina in hope of securing better settlement terms, to any future negotiating sessions. This order could mute some of Argentina's criticism of the requirement that settling the dispute must be with all bondholders, not just the specific holdouts in the case assigned to Pollack. There are roughly 60 cases filed to Griesa's courtroom alone in the U.S. Southern District court with approximately $10 billion worth of claims by investors who did not accept Argentina's restructuring offers in 2005 and 2010, according to one source familiar with the situation. The holdout investors are led by NML Capital, an affiliate of billionaire Paul Singer's Elliott Management and Aurelius Capital Management, led by Mark Brodsky, formerly of Elliott.
