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Ex post efficiency of bankruptcy procedures: A general normative framework

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  • Blazy, Regis
  • Chopard, Bertrand

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the case of a distressed firm whose financial commitments have to be renegotiated with stakeholders (banks, trade creditors …). At default time, rival projects (continuation, piecemeal liquidation, liquidation as a going concern …) may be undertaken. In such a case, the most frequent way of making collective choices is to vote. Our attention focuses on the risk of not choosing the best project because of free riders: personal interests may block the issue in favor of the project associated to the highest value of the firm. At first, we consider a law-enforced procedure under which financial deviations from the absolute priority order (APO) are possible: each individual gain is slightly modified in order to obtain a non-strict majority in favor of the best project. This legal intervention can be implemented and considered as "optimal" if it respects four criteria: economic efficiency, financial neutrality, legal tolerability and democratic desirability. Under these conditions, any law-driven renegotiation process must defines financial transfers that underweight (respectively overweight) the sub-optimal gains (respectively losses) of the most influent voter. Moreover, the proportion of financial transfers granted to each stakeholder exactly reflects their relative influence power: in other words, financial deviations from APO can be interpreted as the price that any stakeholder has to pay (respectively receive) because of his marginal negative (respectively positive) impact on the collective decision. Then, these results serve as a guide to comment ex post efficiency of various bankruptcy procedures (US, French, English and German). Our approach may be interpreted as a first step in the design of an economically efficient procedure that should deal with both ex ante and ex post efficiencies.
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  • Blazy, Regis & Chopard, Bertrand, 2004. "Ex post efficiency of bankruptcy procedures: A general normative framework," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 447-471, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:24:y:2004:i:4:p:447-471
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    1. Blazy, Régis & Chopard, Bertrand & Nigam, Nirjhar, 2013. "Building legal indexes to explain recovery rates: An analysis of the French and English bankruptcy codes," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 1936-1959.
    2. Blazy, Régis & Chopard, Bertrand & Fimayer, Agnès & Guigou, Jean-Daniel, 2011. "Employment preservation vs. creditors' repayment under bankruptcy law: The French dilemma?," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 126-141, June.
    3. Régis Blazy & Laurent Weill, 2006. "The Impact of Legal Sanctions on Moral Hazard when Debt Contracts are Renegotiable," LSF Research Working Paper Series 06-09, Luxembourg School of Finance, University of Luxembourg.
    4. Régis BLAZY & Nicolae STEF, 2015. "How do bankruptcy systems perform in Eastern Europe?," Working Papers of LaRGE Research Center 2015-07, Laboratoire de Recherche en Gestion et Economie (LaRGE), Université de Strasbourg.
    5. Blazy, Régis & Martel, Jocelyn & Nigam, Nirjhar, 2014. "The choice between informal and formal restructuring: The case of French banks facing distressed SMEs," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 248-263.
    6. Régis Blazy & Gisèle Umbhauer & Laurent Weill, 2008. "How Bankruptcy Punishment Influences the Ex-Ante Design of Debt Contracts?," LSF Research Working Paper Series 08-04, Luxembourg School of Finance, University of Luxembourg.
    7. Régis Blazy & Joël Petey & Laurent Weill, 2018. "Serving the creditors after insolvency filings: from value creation to value distribution," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 331-375, April.
    8. Régis Blazy & Bertrand Chopard, 2012. "(Un)secured debt and the likelihood of court-supervised reorganization," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 34(1), pages 45-61, August.
    9. Lipschütz Itay & Schwarz Mordechai E., 2020. "Fairness Vs. Economic Efficiency: Lessons from an Interdisciplinary Analysis of Talmudic Bankruptcy Law," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 16(3), pages 1-38, November.
    10. Jose M Garrido & Mr. Wolfgang Bergthaler & Ms. Chanda M DeLong & Juliet Johnson & Amira Rasekh & Anjum Rosha & Natalia Stetsenko, 2019. "The Use of Data in Assessing and Designing Insolvency Systems," IMF Working Papers 2019/027, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Pindado, Julio & Rodrigues, Luis & de la Torre, Chabela, 2008. "How do insolvency codes affect a firm's investment?," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 227-238, December.
    12. Matthias Frieden & Stefan Wielenberg, 2017. "Insolvency administrator’s incentives and the tradeoff between creditor satisfaction and efficiency in bankruptcy procedures," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 10(2), pages 159-187, October.
    13. Jaka Cepec & Peter Grajzl & Katarina Zajc, 2016. "Debt Recovery in Firm Liquidations: Do Liquidation Trustees Matter?," CESifo Working Paper Series 6034, CESifo.
    14. Régis Blazy & Nicolae Stef, 2020. "Bankruptcy procedures in the post-transition economies," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 7-64, August.
    15. Stef Nicolae, 2017. "Voting Rules in Bankruptcy Law," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 13(1), pages 1-39, March.
    16. Dan LUPU, 2014. "Analysis Of Conceptual Approaches For The Firm In Difficulty," Journal of Public Administration, Finance and Law, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, vol. 5(5), pages 110-116, June.
    17. Blazy, Régis & Deffains, Bruno & Umbhauer, Gisèle & Weill, Laurent, 2013. "Severe or gentle bankruptcy law: Which impact on investing and financing decisions?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 129-144.

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