\\\'Biased\\\' judge won’t end debt standoff: Argentina

Argentina says there is little hope of resolving its damaging debt dispute at a US court hearing, accusing the judge of bias as the repercussions of its partial default continue to mount. The country needs to strike a deal with two US hedge funds whose legal battle against its debt restructuring has blocked it from paying bondholders who agreed to take a 70-percent write-down after its 2001 economic crisis. But the government said it was pessimistic there could be any resolution at the hearing called by US District Judge Thomas Griesa in New York. ‘We cannot have favorable expectations because he has always had a biased view,’ Argentine cabinet chief Jorge Capitanich told journalists in Buenos Aires. He said the hearing would focus on the ‘payment process,’ referring to the $539 million transfer Buenos Aires made on June 26 to pay restructured debt holders. That money has been blocked in a Bank of New York account, frozen by Griesa’s ruling that Argentina cannot pay the 92 per cent of creditors who agreed to a write-down without also paying the hedge funds the entire $1.3 billion it owes them. Argentina says paying the holdouts in full could expose it to claims for up to $100 billion from exchange creditors, who are entitled to equal treatment under what is called a Rights Upon Future Offers, or RUFO, clause, according to AFP.