S&P Reports Russia Has Defaulted On Its Foreign Debt

ABC News reports:

Russia has defaulted on its foreign debt because it offered bondholders payments in rubles, not dollars, credit ratings agency S&P has said.

Russia attempted to pay in rubles for two dollar-denominated bonds that matured on April 4, S&P said in a note on Friday. The agency said this amounted to a “selective default” because investors are unlikely to be able to convert the rubles into “dollars equivalent to the originally due amounts.”

Russia is now planning legal action. “We will sue, because we undertook all necessary action so that investors would receive their payments,” Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper on Monday.

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