Brazilian phone carrier Oi SA faced two setbacks from the government yesterday in its efforts to pull off the country’s biggest-ever in-court debt restructuring, Reuters reported. Brazilian telecoms regulator Anatel yesterday rejected the company’s request to swap billions of reais in regulatory fines for new investments. Anatel said in a statement that the “unsatisfactory” progress of Oi’s reorganization, now in its 16th month, raised doubts about the company’s ability to honor investment commitments resulting from a fine-for-investment swap. Late yesterday, the president of Brazilian national development bank BNDES, Paulo Rabello de Castro, said Oi’s restructuring plan was insufficient. The company owes BNDES 3.3 billion reais ($1 billion).
