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This depends on how tightly contracts are enforced. For all we know the government is the one telling Evergrande not to pay USD denominated bonds. What recourse

This depends on how tightly contracts are enforced. For all we know the government is the one telling Evergrande not to pay USD denominated bonds. What recourse do the bond holders have if the courts tell them to fuck off?

PeterisP 5y ago
First, we don't necessarily expect the courts to tell them to fuck off. The Evergrande organization issuing these bonds (e.g. the bond offering at e.g. https://secure.fundsupermart.com/fsm/bond/relatedBondDocument/784/EVERGRANDE%20-%20Prelim%20OM.pdf https://secure.fundsupermart.com/fsm/bond/relatedBondDocumen... ) is apparently registered in Cayman Islands which we would expect to apply bond law properly, and enforcement in China would be through Hong Kong courts (where their Chinese operations are held) which are technically independent and while may be influenced by CCP they do have a somewhat reasonable reputation. If the local courts do blatantly refuse enforcing proper process of insolvency and fair distributing of assets to debtors, two ways of possible (not necessarily certain) recourse come to mind. One is using non-Chinese courts for claims directly against other bondholders - if Evergrande pays everything to bondholder A and nothing to bondholder B, then B may have a claim on part of the money unfairly paid to A, and they may try to get their assets abroad (if any - A might have only Chinese operations) as compensation. The other is applying various international treaties on protection of investors (it has been relevant in some earlier cases, but I have no idea on the specific treaty status with respect to China). That's highly political (but anything of this size is inherently political), but a hypothetical option would be to get a judgement that Chinese government is liable for part of the damages (not the whole defaulted part - that risk is on investors - but the post-default payments to some bondholders instead of others) and e.g. apply tariffs to Chinese exports to seize compensation for that. But the practical results of such an escalation IMHO depend more on political factors than legal aspects.

PeterisP 5y ago

First, we don't necessarily expect the courts to tell them to fuck off. The Evergrande organization issuing these bonds (e.g. the bond offering at e.g. https://secure.fundsupermart.com/fsm/bond/relatedBondDocument/784/EVERGRANDE%20-%20Prelim%20OM.pdf https://secure.fundsupermart.com/fsm/bond/relatedBondDocumen... ) is apparently registered in Cayman Islands which we would expect to apply bond law properly, and enforcement in China would be through Hong Kong courts (where their Chinese operations are held) which are technically independent and while may be influenced by CCP they do have a somewhat reasonable reputation. If the local courts do blatantly refuse enforcing proper process of insolvency and fair distributing of assets to debtors, two ways of possible (not necessarily certain) recourse come to mind. One is using non-Chinese courts for claims directly against other bondholders - if Evergrande pays everything to bondholder A and nothing to bondholder B, then B may have a claim on part of the money unfairly paid to A, and they may try to get their assets abroad (if any - A might have only Chinese operations) as compensation. The other is applying various international treaties on protection of investors (it has been relevant in some earlier cases, but I have no idea on the specific treaty status with respect to China). That's highly political (but anything of this size is inherently political), but a hypothetical option would be to get a judgement that Chinese government is liable for part of the damages (not the whole defaulted part - that risk is on investors - but the post-default payments to some bondholders instead of others) and e.g. apply tariffs to Chinese exports to seize compensation for that. But the practical results of such an escalation IMHO depend more on political factors than legal aspects.