Cabinet of Ministers granted new rights

Обзор облигаций 20.05.2015 Yesterday, in an unprecedented move, the Ukrainian Parliament adopted a new law that permits the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers to impose a moratorium on US$20.24bn of debt principal that is scheduled to be restructured. Parliament also approved the list of debt to be included in the moratorium, as follows: all sovereign Eurobonds (excluding only US-backed bonds), UKRINF Eurobonds, City of Kyiv Eurobonds and some government guaranteed loans. Investment implications: These approvals only grant the Cabinet of Ministers the right to impose a moratorium after this law becomes effective. While the objective of the Prime Minister's speech in Parliament and of this new law are to put pressure on investors to be more flexible in restructuring talks and agree to the MoF's proposals, Ukrainian law currently does not allow the government to discontinue debt repayments. Such an approval would be unnecessary if a restructuring agreement is successfully achieved.