[darawk]

> Due to the complexities of Puerto Rico's status as a commonwealth (i.e. not a State) the island is unable to declare bankruptcy. If they could then this issue could easily be solved and would give the government some leverage as is the case in most cases involving financial institutions taking advantage of these loans like was the case in Detroit and NYC.

Was Puerto Rico unaware of this when they took out the loans? Was the law changed out from under them after they had made these deals?

If not, why should we care?

[bliblah]

>Was Puerto Rico unaware of this when they took out the loans?

The fact that it went to the Supreme Court of the US [1] means that it is unprecedented and required the highest court in the land to interpret the law means that no parties were fully aware of how Bankruptcy would hold.

[1]https://www.oyez.org/cases/2015/15-233

[darawk]

I mean, sure, they tried to wriggle out of it any way they could, but the law was clear. And they had every reason to believe that this was a very likely outcome.

[thoughtstheseus]

Yes. Anyone who was involved with these bonds did or should have known. People loved that triple tax exemption too much.