Puerto Rico seeks extension in key deadlines in bankruptcy case after Maria

[September 26, 2017]  (Reuters) - Puerto Rico's government on Monday asked a judge for up to four extra weeks to meet key deadlines in the U.S. territory's bankruptcy case, after Hurricane Maria tore through the island, bringing its fragile infrastructure to its knees.

A man looks at damages on his flooded house, close to the dam of the Guajataca lake after the area was hit by Hurricane Maria in Guajataca, Puerto Rico September 23, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

In court papers filed in U.S. bankruptcy court in San Juan, the Puerto Rico Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority sought "urgent" permission from federal Judge Laura Taylor Swain, who oversees the $72 billion bankruptcy, for a four-week extension on so-called discovery in a slew of legal disputes in the case.

The authority also requested that Swain reschedule an upcoming court hearing to Oct. 18 from Oct. 4, and move the hearing from San Juan to federal court in New York, where Swain is based. (http://bit.ly/2jYicND)

Maria was ranked a Category 4 storm, near the top of the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, with winds of up to 155 miles )per hour (250 km per hour), when it made landfall on Puerto Rico on Wednesday as the strongest storm to hit the island in nearly 90 years.

Earlier this month, a source familiar with the bankruptcy proceedings told Reuters that a team of judges advised parties in the bankruptcy to put their legal issues on hold indefinitely in the storm's wake.

(Reporting by Ahmed Farhatha in Bengaluru and Nick Brown in New York; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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