Bankruptcy Filings Are Still Super Low--Don't Believe the Headlines

Headlines recently appeared in the usual places about a big March jump in bankruptcy filings. It is true that March 2021 total bankruptcy filings were 43,425 (according to the Epiq Systems data) and that was a 39.1% increase from February 2021. That looks like a big jump. Of course, March is a longer month, and in fact this March had four more business days than February--almost an entire extra work week. Calculating the filing rate per business day, the March 2021 filing rate was a 14.9% increase from February 2021.

That still feels notable, but let's be careful--very careful. Bankruptcy filings are at historically low levels. When any data series hits a trough and starts creeping back to an old base rate, the increases will feel really big although we are really only getting back to what we had experienced previously. The February filing rate was 1.13 filings per 1,000 persons, the lowest since January 2006 when bankruptcy filings fell to almost nothing after the surge to beat the effective date of the 2005 bankruptcy amendments. (To give you a sense of the surge, the October 2005 rate was 25.53 filings per 1,000 persons.)

Human Rights Watch on Imprisonment for Debt

What happens in countries where no consumer bankruptcy regime exists as a safety valve to assuage the worst consequences of unpayable debt? A report this week from Human Rights Watch ("We Lost Everything": Debt Imprisonment in Jordan) offers one heart-wrenching answer. The following excerpt captures the essence:

Jordan is one of the few countries in the world that still allows debt imprisonment. Failure to repay even small debts is a crime that carries a penalty of up to 90 days in prison per debt, and up to one year for a bounced check; courts routinely sentence people without even holding a hearing. The law does not make an exception for lack of income, or other factors that impede borrowers’ ability to repay, and the debt remains even after serving the sentence. Over a quarter-million Jordanians face complaints of debt delinquency and around 2,630 people, about 16 percent of Jordan’s prison population, were locked up for nonpayment of loans and bounced checks in 2019.

The response from the Jordanian Ministry of Justice is well worth reading, and it concludes by offering some hope: "A committee is reviewing the Execution Law in such a way to ensure justice and account for the interests of both parties (borrower and creditor)." Let us hope that this review concludes as it has in many, many countries around the world in recent years--with a proposal for the adoption of a personal bankruptcy law, following the guidance of the World Bank and other international organizations.

Greensill "Secured" Lending

Slips readers will be interested in Matt Levine's column today, which takes a deep dive into the recently failed Greensill's lending against “prospective receivables,” which is kind of like lending against my prospective estate in Scotland. Both look a lot like unsecured lending.

Book Recommendation: Caesars Palace Coup

A fun new book applies a revealing Law & Order analysis to the multi-billion-dollar, knock-down-drag-out reorganization of Caesar's Palace. In The Caesars Palace Coup, Financial Times editor, Sujeet Indap, and Fitch news team leader, Max Frumes, open with a detailed examination of the personalities and transactions that preceded the Caesars bankruptcy case, leading to the second (and, for me, more interesting) part of the book, tracking step-by-step the harrowing negotiations, court proceedings, and examiner report that led to the ultimate reorganization.

There is so much to like in this book. Its primary strength is its Law & Order backstory, peeling back the onion of every major player, revealing how they got to where they were in their careers in big business management, high finance, or law, and revealing their thoughts and motivations as the deals and legal maneuvers played out. Four years of painstaking personal interviews have paid off handsomely in this fascinating account of the inner workings of big money and big law reorganization practice. On a personal note, I was treated to a bit of nostalgia, as the book opens with and later features Jim Millstein, an absolute gem of a person who taught me about EBITDA when my path fortunately crossed with his at Cleary Gottlieb in New York City in the late 1990s. It also features the Chicago bankruptcy court in my backyard, which seldom hosts such mega cases as Caesars', and the story in the second half of this book reveals part of the reason why. Cameo appearances include some of my favorite academics, such as Nancy Rapoport, as fee examiner, and Slipster, Adam Levitin, as defender of the Trust Indenture Act. On that latter point, the book alludes to (but does not particularly carefully explain) the key role of the Marblegate rulings on the TIA, which is described in a bit more depth in a vintage Credit Slips post. Again, the book's most valuable contribution is a behind-the-scenes look at the motivations and machinations behind a salient instance of collateral stripping, adding to the literature on this (disturbing) trend.

For would-be, currently-are, or has-been (like me) business managers, investment bankers, hedge fund managers, and reorganization lawyers, this book is a fascinating under-the-hood analysis of every stage of a financial business restructuring (not much about the operational side). For anyone interested in the thoughts and motivations of the Masters of the Universe who control so much of our world and its most famous companies, this book offers a brutally honest peek at how the sausage is made. It's not always pretty, but it is both entertaining and enlightening.

Not Cool, Bank of America

I used my phone to remotely deposit a check today at Bank of America. Before I was able to proceed with the transaction, however, Bank of America required me to agree to new terms and conditions for mobile deposits. The terms and conditions were presented to me on my smartphone (roughly a 4''x 2'' screen). I could have pressed "accept" before I scrolled through any of the terms, but I actually went and scrolled through.  It took several scrolls before I got to the end—these were not a short list of terms and conditions, and there was no indication of what had changed. I have no idea there was only a minor amendment or something substantial. More disturbingly, I was given no option of printing or emailing myself the new terms and conditions to which I agreed; I have no idea where (if anywhere) I can access those terms that I have supposedly "agreed" to.