Sovereign debt stocks around the globe, in large part as a result of COVID-19-related expenditures, are in many cases at the highest they have ever been. As the easy money policies of many of the world’s central banks come to an end, there is a significant likelihood that there will be multiple sovereign debt defaults that have to be tackled simultaneously. Multiple sovereigns are in deep crisis and more are on the brink of it, including Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Zambia, Chad and Argentina. Join Lee Buchheit and UVA Law professor Mitu Gulati for a discussion of how they think these restructurings will likely play out in 2022 and 2023.

Buchheit, an expert in sovereign debt restructuring, recently retired from Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton after a 40-year career, during which he helped design and implement the restructurings for dozens of the biggest restructurings in history, including Iraq and Greece. Gulati studies and writes about the sovereign debt markets and restructurings in particular. Buchheit and Gulati have collaborated on over 30 academic articles over the past two decades, many of them setting out the blueprints for restructurings that followed. Dean Risa Goluboff will give a brief introduction.