Good luck seizing our accounts in China, suckers!

Turns out los rusos tambien juegan. In this case, we're the rusos. And who are we playing with? The Chinese. Confused? Read on...

Marianna Párraga has an absolute must-read of a deep dive for Reuters into the PDVSA Default debate. She sees default as likely-but-far-from-a-given, and chronicles PDVSA’s damage-limitation strategies in case October or November witness an “Event“.

It’s hard to pick a pull quote for this one because every graf is so interesting, but this bit really jumped out at me:

PDVSA has taken steps recently to protect itself, including moving the accounts that collect money from its exports to China’s CITIC Bank (601998.SS) from Banco Espirito Santo (BESN.D).

Getting a court order to freeze an account in China would be more difficult than acquiring access to those in the United States.