Buchheit, Lee C.; Gulati, Mitu --- "The treatment of contingent liabilities in a sovereign debt restructuring" [2013] ELECD 450; in LaBrosse, Raymond John; Olivares-Caminal, Rodrigo; Singh, Dalvinder (eds), "Financial Crisis Containment and Government Guarantees" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013) 207

Book Title: Financial Crisis Containment and Government Guarantees

Editor(s): LaBrosse, Raymond John; Olivares-Caminal, Rodrigo; Singh, Dalvinder

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781004999

Section: Chapter 15

Section Title: The treatment of contingent liabilities in a sovereign debt restructuring

Author(s): Buchheit, Lee C.; Gulati, Mitu

Number of pages: 5

Abstract/Description:

The question of how should the contingent liabilities of sovereigns be treated in a general restructuring of the debt of that sovereign has played only a minor role in the sovereign debt restructurings of the last 30 years. Probably the reason is because the aggregate size of such contingent liabilities – in comparison to the overall debt stocks – has in most cases been very small. Slathering government guarantees on third party debts, however, has recently become the tool of choice for many countries in their efforts to quell an incipient panic in their financial markets. Inevitably, some of those sovereigns will need to restructure their own debts one day and this component of their balance sheets, or perhaps better said, their off-balance sheets, will need to be addressed.