Puerto Rico in Distress

ABI Analysis

William R. Clark, the mystery man at the heart of what is being called “a monumental fraud” in Puerto Rico, broke his silence this week, answering questions under oath about whether conspirators at the island’s electric utility overcharged residents by hundreds of millions of dollars and worsened the island’s debt crisis, the New York Times reported today.

The administrators of a top luxury hotel in Puerto Rico have been arrested and charged in a tax evasion case as the U.S. territory cracks down on corruption amid a worsening economic crisis, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today.

Puerto Rico officials won an additional three weeks to submit a proposed rate charge to the island’s energy commission, a fee that would repay bonds used to help restructure about $9 billion of debt owed by the government’s power company, Bloomberg News reported yesterday.

A suggestion from a U.S. Treasury official to protect Puerto Rico’s pension payments while also seeking cuts from all bondholders may be viewed as the latest sign that politicians favor retirees over investors in cases of municipal distress, Bloomberg News reported yesterday.