One of the primary policy initiatives instituted in response to the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis is a requirement that all Eurozone sovereign bonds issued after January 1, 2013 include provisions referred to as Collective Action Clauses or CACs. These CACs are intended to enable an orderly...

The Eurozone official sector has declared that the belated restructuring of Greek bonds held by private sector creditors in 2012 was a “unique and exceptional” event, never, ever to be repeated in any other Eurozone country. Maybe so. But if this assurance proves in time to be as fragile as...

The Eurozone debt crisis is entering its third year. The original objective of the official sector's response to the crisis -- containment -- has failed. All of the countries of peripheral Europe are now in play; three of them (Greece, Ireland and Portugal) operate under full official sector...

We analyze the price effect of the introduction of Collective Action Clauses (CACs) in newly issued sovereign bonds of Eurozone countries as of January 1, 2013. By allowing a majority of creditors to modify payment obligations, such clauses reduce the likelihood of holdouts while facilitating...

On January 1, 2013, it became mandatory that every new sovereign bond issued by a member of the European Monetary Union include a new contract clause called a Collective Action Clause or CAC. This, we believe, constituted the biggest one-time change to the terms of sovereign debt contracts in...

The ongoing European crisis has raised uncomfortable questions about the conditions under which treaty-based unions of nations like the EU or the EMU can legally expel a member — Greece being the most obvious candidate. The EU, for example, has rules governing the voluntary withdrawal of...