Argentine warship seized by hedge fund in debt dispute
HEDGE fund NML Capital, a subsidiary of Paul Singer’s Elliott Management, will today discover if an Argentine warship it had seized in Ghana over unpaid sovereign debts will be freed.
The company had the ship, the ARA Libertad, seized in the Ghanaian port of Tema on 2 October in a bid to enforce legal judgments made in the US and the UK over $1.6bn (£999m) of debts claimed to be owed to the fund by the Argentine government.
Today, the Commercial Division of the High Court of Accra will rule whether the ship can leave the port. The fund had previously applied to the court to have the ship impounded until the debts were repaid.
The long running dispute, which followed Argentina’s default on its debts in 2002, has seen the fund try and seize a number of other Argentine state assets in a bid to claw back the money.
The Argentine government has rejected the calls. It said the “vulture funds” had “crossed a new line in their attack against Argentina”. The Libertad was sailing in Ghana on a training exercise.