A Survey of Corporate Bankruptcy Reforms: Lessons to Be Learnt for Worldwide Good Practices

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed a phenomenal upsurge in the number of corporate bankruptcies. The vulnerabilities which were lying dormant within contemporary bankruptcy regimes suddenly became apparent, causing concerns within the international corporate community. Consequently, researchers, practitioners and policy makers from all over the world got actively engaged in emphasizing the importance of efficient bankruptcy reforms for promoting rescue culture. The primary objective of an insolvency framework should be to provide quick, transparent and cost effective solutions for the resolution of financial distress and promotion of a synergetic environment conducive for the proliferation of healthy debt repayment practices, increased trust factors between creditors and debtors and a better survival rate for viable businesses. In this paper we present a qualitative review of various insolvency reforms introduced in nearly 189 economies over a decade (2005 to 2015), for the efficient resolution of financial distress. For data collection purpose, we use World Bank Database from Doing Business Reports (2005-2015). We provide latest data on the recovery rates, costs, time for resolution based on recent statistics (until June 2015). Finally, we present a list of most popular reforms in bankruptcy and also when possible the effect of their application. This is one of the comprehensive surveys on worldwide corporate bankruptcy reforms. *