History
Sovereign debt collection was rare until the 1950s when sovereign immunity of government issuers was restricted. This trend developed due to the long history of sovereign defaulting on commercial creditors with impunity. Accordingly sovereign debt collection actions began in the 1950s. One example was the freezing of Brazil's gold reserves held by the Federal Reserve.
Investment in sovereign debt with the intent to recover was also restricted due to the laws of champerty and maintenance and by the fact that most sovereign debt was syndicated. Under the doctrine of champerty, it was illegal in England and the United States to purchase a debt with the sole intent of litigating it. The distinction was made that if the debt was purchased to effect a recovery or facilitate investment, the doctrine was not a bar. Most jurisdictions have now eliminated the doctrine as archaic.
Similarly, sovereign debt owed to commercial creditors in the late 1980s was principally held by bank syndicates. This was the result of the petrodollar crisis of the 1970s when oil earnings were recycled into bank loans. The syndication of debt among banks made recovery impractical as a fund intending to litigate had to buy out the entire syndicate of holders or risk having the proceeds of litigation attached pursuant to sharing clauses in the loan agreements.
As the 1980s progressed, debt rescheduling efforts in Latin America created many new and easily traded instruments such as Brady bonds that brought new players into the market, including banks and hedge funds. The original creditors then wrote down their positions and sold the debt into the secondary market—a market consisting of banks and investment funds focused on buying at discounts to achieve above market returns on their investment.
In this process, much debt was repurchased and converted into local currency by the sovereign country issuers in official debt conversion programs designed to attract investment and in severely indebted countries through World Bank funded buy-backs. The result is that the old syndicates were broken up and many unrestructured syndicate "tails" were available for purchase at discounts exceeding 80% of principal face value. That pricing encouraged funds to invest in recovery actions, which would not otherwise make financial sense due to their length and cost.
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