SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO — Hedge Clippers released the following statement in response to the Fiscal Control Board’s (La Junta) demand to cancel part of the debt deemed unconstitutional.
“The Fiscal Control Board finally acknowledges what we have been saying for years, that the debt is illegal and shouldn’t be paid. However, despite this stance, ‘La Junta,’ the Board, contradicts itself in the case of COFINA: another debt to which Puerto Ricans will be forced to pay in the next 40 years.
The Board has the power to stop this abuse by allowing a citizen and democratic audit of all the debt, and then return to the Courts to demand the cancellation of all illegal debt. Even in this moment of light, the Board continues to put the interests of the bondholders pushing an agreement that will have disastrous effects for the Puerto Rican families.”
In June 2016, a report by ACRE’s ReFund America Project released in partnership with Hedge Clippers, argued the illegality of a big chunk of the debt pointing out that there were plenty of ground back then for legally voiding over $30 billion of Puerto Rico’s debt deemed extra-constitutional.
[…] upon unaddressed colonial grievances observed over the years. Among them: 1) the unaudited and “illegal debt;” 2) the unexplained exclusion from U.S. Chapter 9 bankruptcy protections; 3) the arbitrary […]