Preventive Restructuring Toolkit for Business Bankruptcy Prevention
Keywords:
Insolvency (bankruptcy) prevention, preventive restructuring, prepackaged bankruptcy, distressed business rescue, nformal workouts, out-of-court and hybrid restructuring, mergers and acquisitions of distressed assets (companies), EU Directive on preventive restructuring and second chance, WHOA law of the Netherlands (Dutch WHOA law)Abstract
The presence of effective out-of-court mechanisms for bankruptcy prevention is considered in the paper as a condition for
ensuring business sustainability. The hypothesis confirmed in this study is the statement: preventive restructuring of distressed
business allows the main stakeholders of business insolvency relationships to reduce the time and financial costs of immersion
in full-fledged court bankruptcy proceedings. Preventive restructuring should be carried out within the framework of corporate
governance at the pre-bankruptcy stage. The paper identifies the features of existing forms of restructuring — preventive
(out-of-court and hybrid) and judicial, focuses on the advantages and conditions for preventive restructuring for interested parties,
discloses the main stages of the process. In the study the essential tools of preventive restructuring necessary for inclusion in
the legislation and popularization of the use of this mechanism are identified: approval of the debt restructuring plan before
bankruptcy commencement, introduction of creditors’ classes and cramdown tool, stimulating provisions for new and interim
financing, preservation of management powers for the period of preventive restructuring. The process of institutionalization of
the preventive restructuring mechanism is considered on the example of the understudied experience of the Netherlands, where
the EU Directive was successfully implemented in 2021. As a result of generalization of progressive foreign experience and
current Russian practice of preventive restructuring of distressed companies, the author suggests directions to intensify the use of
preventive mechanisms to avoid business bankruptcies in Russia: legislative consolidation of the hybrid restructuring possibilities
under the court protection; improvement of analytical tools for assessing the state of a distressed business on the bankruptcy eve;
ensuring the availability of information about distressed assets; development of the institute of independent consultants on crisis
management; formation of judicial practice encouraging out-of-court rescue; provision of methodological assistance to participants
in the documents’ preparation; development of a preventive rescue culture in society.
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