In surveying this year for dramatic alpha-related stories, we have much from which to choose. This was the year in which the Murdoch family announced its intention to sell some of their highest value holdings to Disney. Also, in 2017 the EQT Rice merger (contested, unsuccessfully, by one prominent hedge fund and challenged, but in time accepted, by another) overcame opposition and may end up redefining the natural gas market. In a very different but equally convoluted affair: Dana Gas shook up the whole world of Shariah finance by claiming, as a restructuring ploy, that its bonds were no longer in compliance with the rules of such finance.

Meanwhile, in the finance world’s analog to “Mayberry RFD,” a rural telephone company is spending the holiday season telling Aurelius Capital Management that no, it is not in default thank you for your concern: and calling Aurelius a “rogue noteholder.”

But we’re not going to invoke any of those stories any further. We offer instead, in no particular order, a list of stories that moved us, taking us along with them from Venezuela to Britain and to cyberspace, with a couple of stops in Washington, D.C. along the way.

Venezuela and PDVSA Default

By October of this year even Russ Dallen, a long-time Venezuela bull, founder of the Venezuela Opportunity Fund, was telling clients to buy credit default swaps to hedge against default.

In November Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA (the parent corporation of Citgo) defaulted on its debt. On Thursday, November 16, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association ruled that a credit event had occurred, triggering CDS payments.

Is there a legal distinction between Venezuela and PDVSA for such purposes? It is difficult to tell. Mitu Gulati, a law professor at Duke, writing in the Credit Slips blog, has described this as “an exam question on veil piercing.” It is surely relevant that within days of the default the government was firing and arresting Citgo executives, and replacing them with Maduro cronies.