To the delight of his business supporters, the administration has passed far-reaching reforms of the bankruptcy system and of class-action lawsuits.
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"The bankruptcy system would be opened to abuse, " the industry groups said in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee last month.
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The 2005 law, a set of amendments to bankruptcy law passed in 1978, was precipitated by a concern among lawmakers that the bankruptcy system was too lenient and was being abused, observers say.
"There was also a widespread impression that fraud and abuse in the bankruptcy system had been rising over time, " he said, with people taking advantage of loopholes and sometimes walking away from debts they could afford to pay.
So far progress has been slow, partly because the new arbitration system and bankruptcy court are intended to settle talks that have failed.
It is now plain that most of the money cannot be recovered by selling assets, because the loans were badly set up, and Mexico's bankruptcy law and judicial system are inadequate.
Work is now in hand which should make emerging-market defaults more manageable in the future, by a system of bankruptcy proceedings which would enable a debtor to negotiate with its creditors and restructure its debts once a majority of them agree.
The Cypriot president said if he hadn't accepted the tax on bank deposits, the European Central Bank would have stopped providing emergency funds to the country's top two lenders which would have led to the collapse of the banking system, the bankruptcy of thousands of small businesses, massive job losses, and ultimately the country's exit from the euro.
The final collapse was brought on by the bankruptcy of the entire Icelandic banking system.
Yet, according to a study by Elizabeth Warren of Harvard Law School, there is no evidence that most people who file for bankruptcy are taking advantage of the system.
The Boston Globe recently reported that state health-insurance commissioners are now worried that medical spending could push both employers and patients into bankruptcy, and may even threaten the system's continued existence.
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The bankruptcy question is resolved by the fact that the system always has new money coming into it from tax rolls, which means it cannot be bankrupted.
The central bank can lend any amount if a bankruptcy threatens the stability of the country's financial system.
It became clear to the rest of the airline industry that bankruptcy was a painful, but necessary step as the system became unsustainable.
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If the court doesn't do that, the company warns that lawyers could "game the system" by hiding or delaying their filings with bankruptcy trusts so courts won't offset any judgments by the amount they recovered elsewhere.
It is this contract-farming system that the family owners now fear as much as bankruptcy.
At the heart of the Jefferson county bankruptcy are the costs associated with a project for its sanitary sewer system.
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For a long while the Hostess board stuck with CEO Craig Jung, who had helped lead Hostess through bankruptcy, but who critics say pushed for an unpopular new distribution system, didn't innovate enough and approved an unprofitable hot dog bun promotion.
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Mr. Singer's fund specializes in distressed debt and bankruptcy situations, so perhaps he has reason to oppose changes to a system he knows so well.
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To date, only WorldCom has selected a system, but its roll-out has been delayed by its bankruptcy filing.
Some argue that one important fix to the system is to allow for student loan debt to be discharged in bankruptcy.
The law applied a "means test" to determine whether a person qualifies for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which erases debts, or Chapter 13, which establishes a payment system.
On April 17th, the Northern Mariana Islands public employee retirement system became the first U.S. public pension fund to seek bankruptcy protection.
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Among many other things, the Lehman bankruptcy symbolized the breakdown of an overly complex, fragmented, opaque, unwieldy and ungovernable financial system.
Because bankruptcy laws attempt to overcome this market failure, they are, in effect, a state-imposed system of universal financial-distress insurance.
But the US has a system for propping up ailing companies and airlines have made full use of the Chapter 11 protection from bankruptcy to enable them to restructure or merge, and secure their futures.
But Thailand's legal system is based on civil law, so the case may not be treated as a precedent by other bankruptcy judges.
It is hoped that this will address the so-called "too big to fail" problem, that pushing these enormous firms into a full-blown and complex bankruptcy process during the height of the financial crisis - as happened with Lehman Brothers - could destroy the entire financial system.
That said, one big difference between the British system and Chapter 11 is that in Britain suppliers have the right to terminate contracts in the event of bankruptcy, quickly disrupting a firm's activities, whereas in America counterparties have to stay as long as they receive reasonable reassurance that they will be paid.
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