In a long overdue, and not exactly surprising decision, moments ago the ISDA Determination Committee decided, after punting for three days in a row, that a Failure to Pay credit Event has occurred with respect to both the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela as well as Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A.

Specifically, in today's determination, in response to the question whether a “Failure to Pay Credit Event occurred with respect to Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A.?” ISDA said that the Determinations Committee voted 15 to 0 that a failure to pay credit event had occurred with respect to PDVSA.

ISDA said the DC also voted 15 to 0 that date of credit event was Nov. 13 and that the potential failure to pay occurred on Oct. 12. ISDA also announced that the DC agreed to reconvene Nov. 20 to continue talks regarding the CDS auction, now that the Credit Default Swaps have been triggered.

it expects PDVSA's creditors to recover as little as 31 percent on their investment.

The panel will now meet next week to discuss whether to hold an auction to set the rate at which the CDS will pay out. When credit swaps are triggered, buyers of the contracts have their losses covered by the counterparties that sold them the insurance-like derivatives.

As recently as last month, traders had bought a net $250 million of default protection through the swaps market, according to the ISDA. Of course, with the PDVSA CDS already trading at a price which implied 100% certainty of default, none of this will be a surprise.