[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] Wednesday that a lower court judge should not have expanded a class action suit of bondholders suing Argentina. District Judge Thomas Griesa had been overseeing litigation related to Argentina’s sovereign debt default from roughly 14 years ago. The appeals court noted it was the fourth time it had reviewed and subsequently rejected Griesa’s tactics for calculating damages. This decision is related to the litigation by Argentina bondholders seeking full repayment after the country’s approximate USD $100 billion default in the beginning of 2002, after which the country defaulted on some bonds again in July 2014. Henry Brecher, who led the plaintiffs in the case, sought damages of up to €68 million (USD $77 million).

The sovereign bond issues as they relate to Argentina have been a hot topic in the news the past year. In April the Second Circuit dismissed [JURIST report] the Argentine government’s appeal of a contempt charge in an ongoing dispute over Argentina’s bond default. Last year Argentina signed into law [JURIST report] a bill to continue making payments on foreign-held bonds outside of US jurisdiction, circumventing the US court ruling [JURIST report] that prohibits Argentina from paying its bondholders until the dispute is resolved. In August of last year Argentina initiated legal proceedings against the US in the International Court of Justice [official website] over US interference in the restructuring of Argentina’s foreign debt [JURIST report].