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Judge Approves Major Debt Restructuring Plan for Puerto Rico

HeadlineFeb 06, 2019

A federal judge approved a plan for Puerto Rico to restructure a portion of its debt Monday which would require Puerto Rico to pay $32 billion over 40 years. Critics say the deal will allow vulture funds to make huge profits by buying up those debts. Several of those vulture funds include public employee pension funds and the investment funds of Harvard, Princeton and Yale. Judge Laura Taylor Swain, who held a hearing on the proposed deal last month, echoed critics’ concerns about Puerto Rico’s ability to make the payments and the likely effects on public services. However, she said in her decision, “[T]he Court is not free to impose its own view of what the optimal resolution of the dispute could have been.” We’ll have more on Puerto Rico later in the broadcast.

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