Heta Law Wiping Out Junior Debt Declared Unconstitutional
By Alexander Weber - 28/lug/2015 11:34:17
Austria’s Constitutional Court overturned a law that wiped out 800 million euros ($885 million) of junior debt owed by “bad bank” Heta Asset Resolution AG, saying some creditors were treated unfairly.
The claims by junior bondholders, which were guaranteed by Heta’s home province of Carinthia, will be reinstated and become subject to a debt moratorium imposed by Austria’s FMA regulator this year, court president Gerhart Holzinger told journalists in Vienna.
The unequal treatment of some creditors is “a violation of the fundamental right to the protection of property,” the court said in a statement. Also, debt guarantees issued by a federal province can’t be rendered completely invalid retroactively, the court said.
Austria is breaking new ground in Europe with the wind-down of Heta, the bad bank of failed Hypo Alpe-Adria-Bank International AG. Lawmakers in Vienna last year enacted legislation that wiped out Heta’s junior debt and the state guarantees on which creditors had relied. That bill preceded Heta’s own resolution, which kicked off in March when regulators imposed a moratorium on its remaining debts.
The debt moratorium, as well as Austria’s bank restructuring law on which it is based, are expected to become the subject of a separate case at the Constitutional Court, Holzinger said.
Groups fighting the junior debt cancellation included insurers like Uniqa Insurance Group AG and Vienna Insurance Group AG, fund managers like Deutsche Bank AG’s DWS, and the World Bank. The instruments affected are subordinated bonds including a 230 million-euro floating-rate note due 2017, a list of privately placed debts.
BayernLB Claim
The Constitutional Court’s decision comes less than a month after Austria agreed to pay 1.23 billion euros to the German state of Bavaria to settle all the pending litigation over Heta between the neighbors. Under the deal, BayernLB will drop its claim concerning 800 million euros it was owed by Heta and that were also reinstated by today’s court decision, according to the Austrian finance ministry.
Heta said that the ruling announced on Tuesday will cause a loss of 800 million euros plus interest in its balance sheet for the first half of the year. It has previously said that any revived junior bonds will become subject to the moratorium, and that they may still be wiped out in the wind-down process. Carinthia’s guarantees for debt owed by Heta will rise to 11 billion euros from 10.2 billion euros.
Drawing Conclusions
Austria’s finance ministry acknowledged the court’s decision, adding that the creation of Heta as a “bad bank” is still constitutional and that the further wind-down of the company isn’t hindered by it.
Austrian lawmakers may be well advised to read the Constitutional Court’s ruling closely and draw their conclusions for the future, Holzinger said. If the cancellation of guarantees is necessary to prevent the collapse of Carinthia, bailing in bondholders of Heta while sparing all other creditors of Carinthia won’t work, he said.
Carinthian officials have started to engage in talks with bondholders as both sides are stepping up efforts to avoid more legal action and come to a mutual agreement over Heta’s debt.
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