Bail-outs and Bail-ins are better than Bankruptcy

The video of this seminar is available below (scroll down)

A GLOBAL ONLINE SEMINAR SERIES FROM THE EDITORS OF THE ECGI WORKING PAPER SERIES

The sixth seminar in the ECGI Spotlight Series was held on Monday, 28 June 2021 at 16:00 CEST (10:00 EST).

The seminar focused on the research papers from the ECGI Working Paper Series:

Kristin van Zwieten, Horst Eidenmüller and Oren Sussman: 

Bail-outs and Bail-ins are better than Bankruptcy: A Comparative Assessment of Public Policy Responses to COVID-19 Distress  (August 20, 2020)

ABOUT THIS EVENT

COVID-19 has severely disrupted the conduct of business around the globe. In jurisdictions that impose one or more ‘lockdowns’, multiple sectors of the real economy must endure prolonged periods of reduced trading or even total shutdowns. The associated revenue losses will push many businesses into bankruptcy. No public policy response can recover these losses.

States can, however, act to reduce the amplification of the shock by the way in which they treat the cohort of newly bankrupt businesses. In jurisdictions where a well-functioning reorganisation procedure can produce value maximising outcomes in normal conditions, the temptation may be to subject this cohort to such procedures. This temptation should be resisted, not only because of the (significant) costs of these procedures, or because of concerns about institutional capacity to treat a high volume of cases, but also because such procedures are likely to be a poor ‘fit’ for the treatment of COVID-19 distress.

The more attractive routes to relief are bail-ins (one-time orders to creditors or counterparties, or some class thereof, to forgive), bail-outs (offers to assume the debtor’s liabilities, or a class thereof), or some combination of the two. In this paper, the authors explain why a public policy response is necessary to mitigate the amplification of the shock caused by trading shut-downs, and we compare treatment by the prevailing bankruptcy law with treatment by bail-ins or bail-outs along a range of dimensions. They conclude by suggesting principles to help guide the choice between bail-ins and bail-outs, and the design of either form of intervention. These principles should offer a useful starting point for thinking about the design and delivery of novel forms of relief to debtors distressed by COVID-19 related revenue losses.

The ECGI Spotlight Series is a global online seminar programme highlighting chosen papers from the ECGI Working Paper Series.

Spotlight Team:
Mike Burkart (Editor) | Miriam Schwartz-Ziv | Amir Licht (Editor) | Geeyoung Min
Contact: Spotlight@ecgi.org

Supported by