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The bondholders accuse Argentina of hiding the reserves in Switzerland
iECO
January 26, 2010

The "holdouts" don't believe in the next debt swap and criticize the government's position.

The president of the American Task Force for Argentina (ATFA), Robert Schapiro (sic), said that Argentina is hiding funds, to avoid embargoes, at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel (BIS), while down-playing the scope of the debt swap, saying it will only benefit the vulture funds and will not improve the country's access to the markets.

In an interview given to the Reuters news agency in Rome, and published on the ATFA website, Shapiro said: "There is no reason for those who rejected the first swap to accept this one, which has more unfavorable conditions."

"She," meaning President Cristina Fern ndez, "can escape from legal decisions, but she can't degrade and debase an international financial institution to do it," Shapiro said.

Meanwhile, the Finance Secretariat continues to delay the confirmation of the submission of the response to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the objections it sent back. While they said that "everything on the legal end is ready," they wouldn't give more details.

"Italian pensioners ask, 'where is my money?', and the response is 'it's across the border in Switzerland," Shapiro said. "The Italian government should do something. We want the BIS to tell Argentina that it can only keep the funds that it requires for the legitimate BIS matters," said Shapiro, ex-economic advisor to former President Bill Clinton.

"Argentina is using the BIS and abusing its international role in order to evade court judgments in the United States, Italy, Japan, England and France," he said.

Regarding the actions of the Argentine government, he said that "it is likely they have mixed what might be technical reserves with other government assets," and added that the government had begun closing its foreign bank accounts starting in 2001, in preparation for the default.

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