A Rio de Janeiro appeals court determined that billions of dollars in fines owed to regulators by Brazil’s Oi SA will be included in the company’s bankruptcy recovery package, Reuters reported. Oi, Brazil’s largest fixed-line telecom company, entered bankruptcy in 2016, and in late 2017 creditors approved a plan to convert billions of dollars of debt into fresh equity. Brazilian telecoms regulator Anatel, however, to which Oi owed some 14 billion reais ($3.39 billion) in fines, claimed in court that its debt should not be subject to the plan in the same manner as other debt classes. With the court’s decision, a significant impediment to Oi’s recovery plan has been removed, along with the possibility of fines lingering over the company. “The fact that the credit is a public entity does not modify the nature of the debt,” the court wrote.
