An increasingly hostile court fight over billions owed by Puerto Rico’s power utility has claimed a major casualty: five members of the often-reviled board overseeing the territory’s finances.
President Donald Trump purged the majority of the seven-member oversight board, the board said Tuesday. The move is raising fears among Puerto Ricans that they will be stuck paying off the full weight of the utility’s debt for decades to come for a power system that catastrophically fails.
“Puerto Rico better be prepared for what’s coming,” said Kenneth McClintock, a former president of Puerto Rico’s Senate.
Bondholders claiming the utility owes them more than $12 billion in debt and interest payments are fighting it out in court with the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico, which has overseen Puerto Rico’s finances since the territory’s historic $72 billion municipal bankruptcy more than eight years ago.
