LONDON (Reuters) -A European body that reviews disputes in the credit default swaps market said on Thursday it will discuss whether a bankruptcy credit event occurred at Credit Suisse after regulators wiped out the bank’s junior bondholders in a state-assisted merger with UBS.
The EMEA Credit Derivatives Determination Committee (CDDC) said it will meet on Friday to discuss the fresh question raised by an investor on Thursday, it said on its website.
Holders of Credit Suisse’s $17 billion of Additional Tier 1 (AT1) bonds were wiped out in March in a 3 billion Swiss franc ($3.35 billion) merger, in the first rescue of a global bank since the 2008 financial crisis. The deal upended a long-established practice of giving bondholders priority over shareholders in a debt recovery, triggering hundreds of lawsuits.
A number of circumstances can constitute a credit event, which – if confirmed by the CDDC – could trigger a payout on credit default swaps which insure against losses from exposure to corporate or sovereign debt.
On Wednesday, the CDDC ruled in response to another question that a Governmental Intervention credit event had not occurred, closing down one of the ways CDS holders were pursuing to secure a payout.
(Reporting by Dhara Ranasinghe and Chiara Elisei, editing by Karin Strohecker and Richard Chang)
