Puerto Rico will default on debt payments in January or May, Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla said, as Congress failed to provide the Caribbean island with the help it was seeking to cope with an escalating debt crisis, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The lapse will probably come on Jan. 1, when its next bond payments are due, Garcia Padilla said yesterday. Puerto Rico and its agencies owe $70 billion and the island faces $957 million of interest payments due Jan. 1, including $357 million on general obligations. The commonwealth this month narrowly averted a default on government-guaranteed debt for the first time, and Garcia Padilla said that it’s inevitable that Puerto Rico will have to restructure debt amassed from years of borrowing to pay bills. Read more.
Today at 1 p.m. ET: Free BloombergLaw "Eye on Bankruptcy" webinar features Rep. Pedro Pierluisi and Judge Steven Rhodes discussing the Puerto Rico debt crisis from ABI’s Winter Leadership Conference! To register, please click here.
Join experts in San Juan to discuss Puerto Rico's economic distress and other important cross-border insolvency topics at ABI's Caribbean Insolvency Symposium Feb. 4-6, 2016. Click here to register!
For more news and analysis of Puerto Rico's debt crisis, be sure to visit ABI's "Puerto Rico in Distress" webpage.
