The government of bankrupt Puerto Rico told a federal judge yesterday that its opposition to a plan announced earlier this month to restructure more than $85 billion of its debt should put the brakes on a confirmation process, Reuters reported. The U.S. commonwealth’s federally created financial oversight board had asked Judge Laura Taylor Swain to approve a schedule that would culminate with a confirmation hearing on a so-called plan of adjustment for Puerto Rico’s core government debt and pension obligations starting in October. The scheduling motion followed the board’s Feb. 9 announcement that it had reached a deal with an expanded group of bondholders to reduce $35 billion of bonds and claims to about $11 billion, moving Puerto Rico closer to exiting bankruptcy, which began in 2017. But Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vazquez objected to the deal’s enhanced recoveries for some bondholders, while certain government retirees would still face the same pension cuts called for in an earlier plan the board announced in September. In a court filing on Wednesday, Puerto Rico’s fiscal agency said the revised plan of adjustment, which the board has not yet filed in court, was “unconfirmable.”
