The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Friday to weigh in on whether Puerto Rico can restructure its public utilities’ debt.
The U.S. territory is in around $72 billion in debt, which it says it can’t repay. The public utilities, meanwhile, are around $20 billion in debt. But lacking the rights of a state, Puerto Rico isn’t allowed to restructure public debts under the Bankruptcy Code, according to The New York Times.
Last year, the territory passed a law giving itself the authority that the Bankruptcy Code withheld so that the debt could still be restructured, but an appeals court shot down the law. The Supreme Court will now decide whether Puerto Rico has to authority to restructure those debts.
The Court is likely to take up the case in March, SCOTUS blog reported.