When countries crash, does it pay to sue? It’s a timely question, with Greece still poised in the balance. Experience in Argentina suggests that accepting – even with a brutal haircut – may end up being more in the money in the long run.

As this Bloomberg story shows, creditors who accepted Argentina’s first debt swap in 2005, four years after its default on nearly $100bn of sovereign debt, and kept their swapped bonds ever since have enjoyed returns of 90 per cent – outpacing a 70-per cent return on emerging-market bonds overall. That’s a sweet recompense for having accepted just 30 cents on the dollar for their investments. Continue reading »