This paper examines the appropriateness of the adoption of Anglo-American type of reorganization provisions into national bankruptcy law using Thailand as a sample. It argues that such adoption shall be cautious. Sinc...This paper examines the appropriateness of the adoption of Anglo-American type of reorganization provisions into national bankruptcy law using Thailand as a sample. It argues that such adoption shall be cautious. Since Thailand started to accommodate such provisions, reorganization, apparently, has limited usefulness--benefitting only large-scale debtors because it does not fit with the nature of Thai business culture, i.e., the borrowing-lending relationship and less-than-arm＇s length business connections. On average, only every one in 200 bankruptcy cases employs reorganization; the rest goes for liquidation but the average outstanding debt in reorganization is over 30 times higher than liquidation. Interestingly, the adjudication rate of reorganization is faster than those of liquidation. Debtors＇ strategic use of the law and the procedural bias are suspected. Debt restructuring led by the central bank in cooperation with commercial banks, instead, is overwhelmingly more successful, equally efficient, and effective because any ailing firm can renegotiate its borrowing contract rather easily in the low transaction cost environment. Debt restructuring outperformed reorganization roughly 800 and two times in terms of cases and debt amount respectively. Thus, the adoption of non-indigenous provisions shall be made prudently. This argument applies towards the standardization of insolvency legislation. Standardizing bankruptcy procedures shall be made carefully and national economic conditions including local business nature and uniqueness are worth examined before any enactment or amendment. Otherwise, benefits of international trade and investment would be achieved at the expense of economic efficiency.展开更多
文摘This paper examines the appropriateness of the adoption of Anglo-American type of reorganization provisions into national bankruptcy law using Thailand as a sample. It argues that such adoption shall be cautious. Since Thailand started to accommodate such provisions, reorganization, apparently, has limited usefulness--benefitting only large-scale debtors because it does not fit with the nature of Thai business culture, i.e., the borrowing-lending relationship and less-than-arm＇s length business connections. On average, only every one in 200 bankruptcy cases employs reorganization; the rest goes for liquidation but the average outstanding debt in reorganization is over 30 times higher than liquidation. Interestingly, the adjudication rate of reorganization is faster than those of liquidation. Debtors＇ strategic use of the law and the procedural bias are suspected. Debt restructuring led by the central bank in cooperation with commercial banks, instead, is overwhelmingly more successful, equally efficient, and effective because any ailing firm can renegotiate its borrowing contract rather easily in the low transaction cost environment. Debt restructuring outperformed reorganization roughly 800 and two times in terms of cases and debt amount respectively. Thus, the adoption of non-indigenous provisions shall be made prudently. This argument applies towards the standardization of insolvency legislation. Standardizing bankruptcy procedures shall be made carefully and national economic conditions including local business nature and uniqueness are worth examined before any enactment or amendment. Otherwise, benefits of international trade and investment would be achieved at the expense of economic efficiency.
