Puerto Rico plans to invoke a new law permitting the suspension of debt payments if the island fails to reach an agreement to defer $422 million in bond payments due May 1, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The commonwealth, which is grappling with a $70 billion debt crisis, remains in talks with creditors, said Jesus Manuel Ortiz, a spokesman for Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla.
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House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said yesterday that he is "hopeful" lawmakers can move legislation on Puerto Rico out of the House before the U.S. territory must make a $1.55 billion debt payment in July, Reuters reported.
Puerto Rico’s Senate plans to take up legislation today that would exclude bonds used to restructure public-corporation debt from the island’s moratorium law, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The upper chamber is set to take up the measure passed by the House of Representatives last week, Senate President Eduardo Bhatia said yesterday.
Puerto Rico’s Government Development Bank, operating under a state of emergency to preserve cash, is about halfway toward reaching a forbearance agreement with creditors, Jesus Manuel Ortiz, a spokesman for Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla, Bloomberg News reported on Saturday.