Puerto Rico in Distress

ABI Analysis

Less than 10 days before they plan to adjourn for the Christmas holiday, lawmakers in Congress remain divided over how to help Puerto Rico as the island rapidly runs out cash and inches closer toward the first major default on its bonds, Bloomberg News reported yesterday.

Republicans offered legislation to address Puerto Rico’s fiscal crisis yesterday, signaling a growing bipartisan appetite to head off what lawmakers said could soon become a humanitarian crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported today. In the House, Rep.

Puerto Rico’s main electric utility won another week from bondholders to get insurance companies to sign onto an agreement to restructure the agency’s $8.2 billion of debt and for commonwealth lawmakers to approve the proposal, Bloomberg News reported yesterday.

The U.S. Supreme Court will consider reinstating a Puerto Rico law that would let its debt-ridden public utilities restructure their obligations, agreeing to hear an appeal by the commonwealth as it tries to navigate out of its fiscal crisis, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. The disputed law would affect $22 billion of Puerto Rico’s $70 billion in debt.