Sovereign syndicated bank credits in the 1970s

This essay reviews the development of the documentation of bank-syndicated credit agreements with sovereign states and state entities during the formative years of the 1970s. One of the main objectives of this review is to examine the impact that the documentation had upon the resolution of sovereign insolvencies in the lost decade of the 1980s. This essay is based on the direct recollection of a number of practitioners in London who had worked on syndicated credit documentation with sovereign states during the 1970s. Adapted from the source document.