Puerto Rico in Distress

ABI Analysis

A U.S. regulator yesterday filed a lawsuit against 16 U.S. and international banks alleging they had manipulated bbaLIBOR, which is a series of interest-rate benchmarks, leading to the collapse of Puerto Rico’s Doral Bank, Reuters reported.

A federal judge approved an emergency $300 million loan that will keep Puerto Rico’s troubled electric utility in operation, averting a threat of more power outages at a time when the island is trying to recover from last summer’s devastating hurricanes, the Wall Street Journal reported. Judge Laura Taylor Swain of U.S.

Puerto Rico’s power company will begin shutting down as soon as Friday if it doesn’t receive a $1 billion loan from the territory’s central government, threatening to cause widespread electricity outages across the hurricane-devastated island, a lawyer for Puerto Rico told a U.S. judge, Bloomberg News reported.

A top Puerto Rico senator is suggesting that the bankrupt island accept its own deeply distressed bonds as collateral - at nearly full-value, no less, Bloomberg News reported.