Financial Regulatory Forum

BUENOS AIRES, March 1 (Reuters) – Argentine President Cristina Fernandez on Monday scrapped a decree to tap $6.6 billion in foreign reserves to help honor public debt this year, but ordered the use of reserves to pay multilateral lenders.

In her state of the union address to Congress, Fernandez said she had signed a new decree allowing the use of about $4 billion of central bank reserves to pay lenders such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank.

A government source said the monetary authority had started transferring the funds to the Treasury, while opposition parties said they would ask the courts to freeze the new decree.

Fernandez’s initial bid to transfer part of the country’s $48 billion in foreign reserves into a fund had been blocked by the country’s courts and opposed by the former central bank chief Martin Redrado, who the president then fired.

The bank is now controlled by a close government ally.

The government was also expected to tap the reserves to pay some $2 billion of debt with multilateral institutions coming due this year.

BUENOS AIRES, Jan 22 (Reuters) – An Argentine court ruled on Friday that Congress should decide the fate of Central Bank chief Martin Redrado, who was reinstated in his job by a judge a day after the president sacked him.

The court, rejecting an appeal by the government of President Cristina Fernandez, also upheld a previous injunction that blocked her plans to transfer $6.6 billion in Central Bank reserves to the treasury to pay the public debt.

“The court has decided that the government should not permanently appoint the president of the Central Bank until the legislature has participated,” the court ruling said.

By Kevin Gray and Luis Andres Henao

BUENOS AIRES, Jan 14 (Reuters) – Argentina is working to launch an exchange of $20 billion in defaulted debt by the end of January or early February despite a political battle over foreign reserves that has roiled markets, the finance secretary told Reuters on Thursday.

Finance Secretary Hernan Lorenzino said Argentine officials have been talking with retail investors and would travel to Europe next week to discuss the swap with holders of the country’s defaulted debt.

Argentina hopes the swap will allow it to issue new global bonds eight years after a massive sovereign default and ease tight financing this year as it confronts some $13 billion in debt payments.

By Jorge Otaola

BUENOS AIRES, Jan 12 (Reuters) – A U.S. judge has frozen accounts held by Argentina’s Central Bank in the U.S. Federal Reserve, deepening a legal dispute over the Argentine government’s plan to use foreign reserves to repay debt.

Speculation has grown in Argentina in recent days that some holders of defaulted government bonds could try to get Central Bank funds embargoed because of a plan to use $6.6 billion in Central Bank foreign reserves to service the nation’s debt.

“The funds that the central bank has in the (U.S.) Federal Reserve have been embargoed,” an Argentine Central Bank spokesman said.

BUENOS AIRES, Jan 11 (Reuters) – An Argentine judge on Monday was analyzing a government appeal of a court ruling that blocked its plan to use foreign currency reserves to repay debt and reinstated the ousted central bank president.

The plan by President Cristina Fernandez to use billions of dollars to make debt payments has set off an escalating political battle and shaken Argentine financial markets.

Fernandez used a presidential decree to fire Central Bank President Martin Redrado on Thursday for refusing to support the plan.