Default: The Landmark Court Battle over Argentina's $100 Billion Debt Restructuring

The dramatic inside story of the most important case in the history of sovereign debt law Argentina's 2001 default on $100 billion in bonds and the messy litigation that followed has had an outsized impact on sovereign debt markets, sovereign debt law, and the International Monetary Fund's policies. This is the sovereign debt case study that scholars, legal practitioners, investors, and overindebted countries must understand—and Default provides the first comprehensive account of these events. Deeply researched and meticulously documented, Default follows Argentina as it manages its tumultuous relationship with external creditors, from its December 2001 default through an intense fight over the role of the IMF in Argentina's 2005 debt restructuring and finally the April 2016 settlement of most legal claims. Pairing unbiased exposition with masterful character portraits and actual dialogue from the public record, Gregory Makoff brings his readers into the rooms—including board rooms, negotiating rooms, and courtrooms in New York, Washington, and around the world—as the events unfold. By revealing the obscure inner workings of sovereign debt restructuring, Makoff gives us a cautionary tale for the ages that lays bare the institutional, political, and legal pressures that come into play when a country cannot repay its debts. Besides making an important contribution to the literature, Default has stimulated interest from a wide range of readers around the globe, including academics, practicing legal experts, debt investors, government officials, financial reporters, bankers, staff members of international financial institutions, and general readers.

Table of Contents:
Foreword Introduction 1. Argentina Defaults Then Fights with the IMF (December 2001–March 2003) 2. The Three-Way War: Argentina Battles with Creditors and the IMF over the Debt Deal (January 2003–April 2004) 3. Kirchner's Triumph: Argentina's 2005 Debt Restructuring (April 2004–June 2005) 4. Backstory: Elliot's War on Peru (1996–2000) 5. Raid on the Argentine Central Bank (December 2005–January 2007) 6. All Plaintiffs Big and Small (June 2005–December 2009) 7. Turning Point (2010) 8. Equal Treatment (October 2010–May 2014) 9. Argentina's Economic Stumbles and Elliott's Worldwide War (October 2010–June 2014) 10. It All Falls Apart (June 2014–November 2015) 11. The Settlement (December 2015–April 2016) Epilogue Conclusion Acknowledgments Appendix A: Featured Characters Appendix B: Timeline of Events Glossary Note on Sources Notes About the Author

About the Author :
Gregory Makoff, PhD, is a nonresident senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and a former senior fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. Previously, he worked as a banker specializing in sovereign debt management and served as a senior policy adviser at the US Department of the Treasury.

Review :
[A] superb account. Default is a powerful, exciting and instructive book that clearly and surprisingly amusingly presents the 'lengthiest, messiest sovereign debt restructuring in history' (283). This book is a pleasant surprise. A scrupulously fair and comprehensive look at the trial of the century for sovereign debt. Featuring excerpts from numerous legal briefs, oral arguments, and judicial musings and decisions—as well as revealing interviews with key participants—the book should be required reading for students of international law, and of interest to anyone wanting to understand what the "Trial of the Century," as it was referred to in the press and among attorneys, was all about. [Makoff] packs a lot of detail about the many overlapping legal cases, the players on all sides and the macro conditions into this "courtroom drama," which doubles as a guide about challenging debt restructuring. For students and professors, Makoff sticks the landing in authoring both a scholarly and practical history. Much ink has been spilt in academic circles on how sovereign debt markets work in theory. It took a practitioner like Makoff to explain how the world is rather than how it is supposed to be. Alternating between spellbinding narrative and dry legal analysis, he describes the thrust and parry between Argentine governments and litigious investors.... It is highly readable, more relevant than ever, and absolutely required reading in these times of high sovereign debt, global tension and climate finance priorities, especially in less developed, indebted countries. In his magnificent new book, Default, Gregory Makoff tells the story of one of the most fascinating (and surreal, I would say) episodes in Argentina's history....The book is full of information, testimony from the main players, quotes from the international media, and statistical data obtained from various sources. All this makes it an important scholarly contribution to the literature on sovereign defaults. But there is more to it than this. There is also a fair amount of gossip, and the book is written in a lively style. It sometimes reads like a novel.... Makoff tells the story of the final negotiation, with all its drama and complexity, in a masterful way. Makoff's book is well researched, relying mostly on primary sources for citations and insider knowledge of IMF meetings and strategy....The book can thus be enjoyed by historians, economists and lawyers, as well as by casual readers, though few will be able to match Makoff's knowledge in all these fields. The book is revealing of dynamics that even close observers of the Argentine ordeal may have missed....Makoff has offered an enthralling guide through it.