Argentina is offering a voluntary bond swap to exit US jurisdiction:

Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández announced plans on Tuesday to launch a voluntary debt swap aimed at dodging a US court ruling that last month triggered the country’s second default in less than 13 years.

The government is seeking approval from congress for plans that would enable it to service debt in Argentina as well as allow bondholders to exchange their debt issued under foreign law for bonds of the same value governed by local law.

Ms Fernández said Argentina would stop using Bank of New York Mellon as a trustee and instead make payments on its bonds via an account at Banco de la Nación in Buenos Aires, after the default was caused by a US judge preventing BNY Mellon from transferring $539m to bondholders.

The US Supreme Court upheld the judge’s ruling that Argentina must pay its so-called holdout creditors in full at the same time as paying the rest of its bondholders, who accepted a 65 per cent haircut on their bonds after a 2001 default.

One wonders how many of the bond holders will take the deal.

My guess is most of the non-vultures will if Argentina sweetens the deal by a few more basis points on the bonds.

Of course, the alternative is that the court will prevent disbursements to the bond-holders who refuse the swap for a few years so I don’t think that the deal needs to be sweetened by all that much.

Still, I prefer sending bounty hunters after the vultures.