Legislation seeking to block holdout bond investors from using New York courts to sue defaulted foreign governments stalled in the state assembly.
New York lawmakers ended the legislative session early Saturday without voting on the so-called champerty doctrine. The bill would have prohibited “litigious holdout investors” from purchasing emerging-market government bonds governed under NY laws for the sole purpose of bringing defaulted nations to court.
About half of all hard-currency debt from developing nations — around $800 billion outstanding — is governed by New York law, making the state the most important jurisdiction for those bond issuers.
The measure was ...