(CNS Business): Argentina has asked a federal appeals court to reverse lower-court rulings that could help creditors NML Capital Fund and EM Ltd, which is controlled by Kenneth Dart, collect on $1.4 billion in defaulted bonds. Argentina refers to EM and NML as “vulture funds”, which are funds that buy distressed debt cheaply and then use the courts to try to force debtors to repay them in full. Court documents showed that EM won a final judgment in 2003 totaling $724.8 million plus accrued interest of $74.4 million through 22 May 2012. NML Capital, which is part of New York-based Elliott Management Corp, won a final judgment in 2006 for $284.2 million with accrued interest of $85.3 million. 

Argentina defaulted on some $100 billion of sovereign debt at the height of a 2001-02 economic and political crisis - the biggest sovereign debt default in history.
The government restructured about 92% of the defaulted bonds in debt swaps but holdout creditors like EM and NML Capital rejected the swaps and sued instead to recover the full value of the defaulted bonds.
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