Contemporary Issues in Consumer Bankruptcy


Book Description

Over-indebtedness is a serious problem that contributes to health problems and social exclusion. With examples from Germany, Portugal, Canada, Japan, South Africa, the Netherlands and Sweden, this book argues that legal relief may have different forms, from judicial debt adjustment to consumer protection and regulation of debt enforcement.




As We Forgive Our Debtors


Book Description

Bankruptcy in America is a booming business, with hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans filing for bankruptcy each year. Is this dramatic growth a result of mushrooming debt or does it reflect a moral decline that permits the middle class to evade their debts? As We Forgive Our Debtors addresses these questions with hard empirical data drawn from bankruptcy court filings. The authors of this multidisciplinary study describe the law and the statistics in clear, nontechnical language, combining a thorough statistical description of the social and economic position of consumer bankrupts with human portraits of the debtors and creditors whose journeys have ended in bankruptcy court. Book jacket.




Bankruptcy


Book Description

Excessive household debt has allowed for economic growth, but this model has become increasingly unstable. Spooner examines bankruptcy law as a potential solution.




Debt's Dominion


Book Description

Bankruptcy in America, in stark contrast to its status in most other countries, typically signifies not a debtor's last gasp but an opportunity to catch one's breath and recoup. Why has the nation's legal system evolved to allow both corporate and individual debtors greater control over their fate than imaginable elsewhere? Masterfully probing the political dynamics behind this question, David Skeel here provides the first complete account of the remarkable journey American bankruptcy law has taken from its beginnings in 1800, when Congress lifted the country's first bankruptcy code right out of English law, to the present day. Skeel shows that the confluence of three forces that emerged over many years--an organized creditor lobby, pro-debtor ideological currents, and an increasingly powerful bankruptcy bar--explains the distinctive contours of American bankruptcy law. Their interplay, he argues in clear, inviting prose, has seen efforts to legislate bankruptcy become a compelling battle royale between bankers and lawyers--one in which the bankers recently seem to have gained the upper hand. Skeel demonstrates, for example, that a fiercely divided bankruptcy commission and the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress have yielded the recent, ideologically charged battles over consumer bankruptcy. The uniqueness of American bankruptcy has often been noted, but it has never been explained. As different as twenty-first century America is from the horse-and-buggy era origins of our bankruptcy laws, Skeel shows that the same political factors continue to shape our unique response to financial distress.




Broke


Book Description

About 1.5 million households filed bankruptcy in the last year, making bankruptcy as common as college graduation and divorce. The recession has pushed more and more families into financial collapse—with unemployment, declines in retirement wealth, and falling house values destabilizing the American middle class. Broke explores the consequences of this unprecedented growth in consumer debt and shows how excessive borrowing undermines the prosperity of middle class America. While the recession that began in mid-2007 has widened the scope of the financial pain caused by overindebtedness, the problem predated that large-scale economic meltdown. And by all indicators, consumer debt will be a defining feature of middle-class families for years to come. The staples of middle-class life—going to college, buying a house, starting a small business—carry with them more financial risk than ever before, requiring more borrowing and new riskier forms of borrowing. This book reveals the people behind the statistics, looking closely at how people get to the point of serious financial distress, the hardships of dealing with overwhelming debt, and the difficulty of righting one's financial life. In telling the stories of financial failures, this book exposes an all-too-real part of middle-class life that is often lost in the success stories that dominate the American economic narrative. Authored by experts in several disciplines, including economics, law, political science, psychology, and sociology, Broke presents analyses from an original, proprietary data set of unprecedented scope and detail, the 2007 Consumer Bankruptcy Project. Topics include class status, home ownership, educational attainment, impacts of self-employment, gender differences, economic security, and the emotional costs of bankruptcy. The book makes judicious use of illustrations to present key findings and concludes with a discussion of the implications of the data for contemporary policy debates.




Failure and Forgiveness


Book Description

In 1996 a record one million-plus bankruptcy cases were filed in the United States. In this book, an eminent legal authority provides an accessible introduction to and evaluation of the federal bankruptcy system governing these filings. Karen Gross describes existing bankruptcy law, assesses what is actually happening in practice, and makes specific - and controversial - recommendations for reform. Gross explores the varying and often conflicting interests of debtors, creditors, and community in the bankruptcy system. She justifies the idea of a 'fresh start' for individual and business debtors by analyzing notions of forgiveness and rehabilitation in a civilized society. She offers a perspective on how to treat certain of the creditors that bankruptcy touches, substituting a principle of equality of outcome for the principle of equality of treatment. She also presents an original argument about community interests, contending that they should be given serious weight in the necessary balancings that make up bankruptcy law and policy, and provides specific statutory amendments to achieve this goal. Offering a humanitarian approach to bankruptcy rather than the law and economic approach commonly used, this book places legal issues of bankruptcy in their social context and opens the dialogue about bankruptcy to lawyers and nonlawyers alike.




Business Bankruptcy


Book Description

Business Bankruptcy: Financial Restructuring and Modern Commercial Markets provides students with a contemporary stand-alone business bankruptcy text. Designed to teach financial restructuring law in a realistic twenty-first century commercial context, the book uses problem sets to explore not only Chapter 7 and 11 bankruptcy, but also out-of-court restructuring, modern financial products and transactions, and advanced in-court restructuring topics. New to the Second Edition: Clear thematic structure emphasizing the limitations on out-of-court restructuring and how bankruptcy attempts to address those limitations Reorganized chapter flow tracking traditional order of bankruptcy topics Substantially condensed text through elimination of extra cases and statutory excerpts Updated problem sets, including coverage of privacy issues in bankruptcy sales and capstone strategic issues Expanded coverage of out-of-court restructuring New chapters providing overview of bankruptcy process and summary comparing issues in out-of-court and in-court restructuring Professors and students will benefit from: Unique coverage of out-of-court restructuring providing students with realistic view of contemporary restructuring practice and showing what Chapter 11 adds to the financial restructuring toolkit Detailed coverage of modern financial products and markets—derivatives, securitization, loan syndications, and claims trading—familiarizing students with the dynamics of the modern restructuring landscape Comprehensive expository text clearly explaining the operation of the Bankruptcy Code and the policy issues involved In-depth case-studies contextualizing judicial decisions within the larger strategic picture Incorporation of actual deal documents, including a bond indenture, a loan syndication agreement, ISDA Master Agreement, and a restructuring support agreement Modular design enabling optional coverage of advanced topics




A Guide to Consumer Insolvency Proceedings in Europe


Book Description

Since the adoption of the EU Regulation on Insolvency Proceedings in 2000 and its recast in 2015, it has become clear that lawyers engaged in consumer insolvency proceedings are increasingly expected to have a basic understanding of foreign insolvency proceedings, as well as knowledge of the foreign country's court and legal system, legislation and judicial practice. Written by 50 highly qualified insolvency experts from 30 European countries, A Guide to Consumer Insolvency Proceedings in Europe provides the necessary information in the largest, most up-to-date and comprehensive book on this topic. Assisting the readers in their navigation through the differences, similarities, and peculiarities of insolvency proceedings in all Member States of the European Union, Switzerland and Russia, this book is a unique guide to insolvency proceedings across Europe. With contributions by both academics and practitioners, it provides truly multinational coverage of the economic, legal, social, political, and demographic issues in consumer insolvency. Illustrating the numerous practices across Europe, this book allows the reader to evaluate each aspect both on its own merits, as well as in comparison to the approaches applied in other European jurisdictions. This book will be an invaluable tool for insolvency practitioners, judges, lawyers, creditors and debtors throughout Europe, especially those participating in cross-border proceedings.




Bankrupt in America


Book Description

In 2005, more than two million Americans—six out of every 1,000 people—filed for bankruptcy. Though personal bankruptcy rates have since stabilized, bankruptcy remains an important tool for the relief of financially distressed households. In Bankrupt in America, Mary and Brad Hansen offer a vital perspective on the history of bankruptcy in America, beginning with the first lasting federal bankruptcy law enacted in 1898. Interweaving careful legal history and rigorous economic analysis, Bankrupt in America is the first work to trace how bankruptcy was transformed from an intermittently used constitutional provision, to an indispensable tool for business, to a central element of the social safety net for ordinary Americans. To do this, the authors track federal bankruptcy law, as well as related state and federal laws, examining the interaction between changes in the laws and changes in how people in each state used the bankruptcy law. In this thorough investigation, Hansen and Hansen reach novel conclusions about the causes and consequences of bankruptcy, adding nuance to the discussion of the relationship between bankruptcy rates and economic performance.




Republic of Debtors


Book Description

Debt was an inescapable fact of life in early America. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, its sinfulness was preached by ministers and the right to imprison debtors was unquestioned. By 1800, imprisonment for debt was under attack and insolvency was no longer seen as a moral failure, merely an economic setback. In Republic of Debtors, authorBruce H. Mann illuminates this crucial transformation in early American society.