ISDA says Greece experienced 'credit event' (by Myra P. Saefong)

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The International Swaps and Derivatives Association said Friday that the Greek government's use of collective-action clauses, or CACs, to amend to terms of Greece-issued bonds qualifies as a "credit event" for Greece. A credit event requires a payout to those who held credit default swaps as insurance to protect themselves in the event of a Greek default. The ISDA decision could trigger payouts on $3.2 billion of those insurance-like contracts, according to Dow Jones Newswires. The news comes after the Greek government announced that 83.5% of its private-sector bondholders agreed to a bond-swap deal. That rate fell short of the 90% needed to prevent legal force to get the rest of the private bondholders to participate, so Greece's finance ministry said it got approval for CACs, which would bring the total participation rate to 96% by forcing some bondholders on board.