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Who Should Pay for Bankruptcy Costs?

Author

Listed:
  • Ivo Welch
  • Arturo Bris
  • Alan Schwartz
Abstract
The fees of experts (financial advisors, lawyers, accountants) are a substantial fraction of bankruptcy costs. Scholars have considered how best to reduce these costs, but have not considered how they should be allocated among creditors. The allocation issue is important because creditors can spend redistributionally (to violate or uphold absolute priority) and productively (to increase the value of the bankrupt firm). An efficient bankruptcy cost allocation scheme should discourage redistributional and encourage productive creditor spending. We consider the desirability of various allocation schemes in a model in which senior and junior creditors can engage in both types of spending but the bankruptcy court cannot distinguish productive from rent seeking activities. We suppose that the senior claim is at or in the money. This implies that the seniors have an incentive to spend only to defend their position while the juniors have both good and bad incentives: to spend productively on value improvement because they are residual claimants and to spend redistributionally because they are partly or totally out of the money under absolute priority. A good bankruptcy cost allocation scheme thus should induce the seniors to spend more and the juniors to spend less. We show: (i) The current US cost allocation system is unsatisfactory because the scheme partially reimburses junior expenses on experts but does not reimburse seniors at all; (ii) Full reimbursement scheme

Suggested Citation

  • Ivo Welch & Arturo Bris & Alan Schwartz, 2003. "Who Should Pay for Bankruptcy Costs?," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm365, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Sep 2004.
    • Handle: RePEc:ysm:wpaper:ysm365
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    File URL: https://repec.som.yale.edu/icfpub/publications/2477.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Skeel, "undated". "Creditors' Ball: The 'New' New Corporate Governance in Chapter 11," Scholarship at Penn Law upenn_wps-1032, University of Pennsylvania Law School.
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    Cited by:

    1. Arturo Bris & Ivo Welch, 2005. "The Optimal Concentration of Creditors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(5), pages 2193-2212, October.
    2. Lynn M. LoPucki & Joseph W. Doherty, 2008. "Professional Overcharging in Large Bankruptcy Reorganization Cases," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 5(4), pages 983-1017, December.
    3. Dinev, Nikolay, 2017. "Voluntary Bankruptcy as Preemptive Persuasion," Economics Series 334, Institute for Advanced Studies.
    4. Du, Qianqian & Hellmann, Thomas, 2024. "Getting tired of your friends: The dynamics of venture capital relationships," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    5. Alan Schwartz, "undated". "A Normative Theory of Business Bankruptcy," American Law & Economics Association Annual Meetings 1037, American Law & Economics Association.
    6. Du, Qianqian & Hellmann, Thomas, 2024. "Getting tired of your friends: The dynamics of venture capital relationships," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    7. John Armour, 2006. "Should we redistribute in insolvency," Working Papers wp319, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    8. Edward R. Morrison, 2007. "Bankruptcy Decision Making: An Empirical Study of Continuation Bias in Small-Business Bankruptcies," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 50(2), pages 381-419.
    9. Fan, Joseph P.H. & Huang, Jun & Zhu, Ning, 2013. "Institutions, ownership structures, and distress resolution in China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 71-87.
    10. 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.
    11. Douglas Baird & Arturo Bris & Ning Zhu, 2007. "The Dynamics of Large and Small Chapter 11 Cases: An Empirical Study," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2524, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Sep 2009.
    12. Douglas Baird & Arturo Bris & Ning Zhu, 2007. "The Dynamics of Large and Small Chapter 11 Cases: An Empirical Study," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2524, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Sep 2009.

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