IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/irlaec/v31y2011i2p126-141.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Employment preservation vs. creditors' repayment under bankruptcy law: The French dilemma?

Author

Listed:
  • Blazy, Régis
  • Chopard, Bertrand
  • Fimayer, Agnès
  • Guigou, Jean-Daniel

Abstract

The paper investigates the French dilemma associated with court administered resolution of corporate financial distress. In such a legal system, the courts seek a double objective: maintaining job positions through continuation, and determining the best outcome for the claimants. We discuss this dilemma empirically, using a unique sample of bankruptcy files on French SMEs. We address successively three critical questions. First, we highlight the determinants of the final bankruptcy outcome (continuation through reorganization or sale, or piecemeal liquidation): does continuation (the most employment-friendly outcome) depend on the firm's characteristics, and/or on the way the procedure is managed? Second, we study the determinants of the creditors' recovery rates: do the courts play an active role in increasing recoveries? Third, we address the dilemma directly by focusing on sales as a going concern. We model the court administered selection process between rival buyout offers: do the courts balance the social content against the financial content of each offer? Is there an explicit arbitrage between employment preservation and creditor recoveries? Our main results are: (1) the French courts actively work to facilitate continuation against liquidation, and thus play a role in employment preservation. Besides, we find continuation is more likely to prevail when default is an outcome of specific difficulties (outlets, finance, and production). (2) We confirm the Radulovic (2008) findings: the global recovery rate mainly depends on the firm's ex ante characteristics at the time of triggering, while the way the procedure is managed by the court has little impact. Similarly to LoPucki and Doherty (2007), continuation via reorganization does not generate lower recovery rates on average than the other outcomes. (3) Last, the courts' choice between rival buyout offers confirms that social considerations prevail in the arbitration. Yet, the courts still consider financial issues as well (a higher sale price increases the chances that an offer is selected), but without clear connection with the amount of due claims (one direct consequence is a moderate recovery rate on sales).

Suggested Citation

  • Blazy, Régis & Chopard, Bertrand & Fimayer, Agnès & Guigou, Jean-Daniel, 2011. "Employment preservation vs. creditors' repayment under bankruptcy law: The French dilemma?," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 126-141, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:31:y:2011:i:2:p:126-141
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0144818811000202
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lambert-Mogiliansky, Ariane & Sonin, Konstantin & Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina, 2007. "Are Russian commercial courts biased? Evidence from a bankruptcy law transplant," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 254-277, June.
    2. Bergstrom, Clas & Eisenberg, Theodore & Sundgren, Stefan, 2002. "Secured debt and the likelihood of reorganization," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 359-372, May.
    3. Eckbo, B. Espen & Thorburn, Karin S., 2009. "Creditor financing and overbidding in bankruptcy auctions: Theory and tests," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 10-29, February.
    4. Jeffrey J. Rachlinski & Chris Guthrie & Andrew J. Wistrich, 2007. "Heuristics and Biases in Bankruptcy Judges," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 163(1), pages 167-186, March.
    5. Fisher, Timothy C G & Martel, Jocelyn, 1995. "The Creditors' Financial Reorganization Decision: New Evidence from Canadian Data," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 11(1), pages 112-126, April.
    6. Vedran Capkun & L. A. Weiss, 2007. "Bankruptcy Resolution: Priority of Claims with the Secured Creditor in Control," Post-Print halshs-00170589, HAL.
    7. Eberhart, Allan C & Moore, William T & Roenfeldt, Rodney L, 1990. "Security Pricing and Deviations from the Absolute Priority Rule in Bankruptcy Proceedings," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(5), pages 1457-1469, December.
    8. Blazy, Regis & Chopard, Bertrand, 2004. "Ex post efficiency of bankruptcy procedures: A general normative framework," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 447-471, December.
    9. Franks, Julian R. & Torous, Walter N., 1994. "A comparison of financial recontracting in distressed exchanges and chapter 11 reorganizations," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 349-370, June.
    10. Dahiya, Sandeep & John, Kose & Puri, Manju & Ramirez, Gabriel, 2003. "Debtor-in-possession financing and bankruptcy resolution: Empirical evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 259-280, July.
    11. Sergei A. Davydenko & Julian R. Franks, 2008. "Do Bankruptcy Codes Matter? A Study of Defaults in France, Germany, and the U.K," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(2), pages 565-608, April.
    12. Espen Eckbo, B. & Thorburn, S. Karin, 2008. "Automatic bankruptcy auctions and fire-sales," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(3), pages 404-422, September.
    13. Per Strömberg, 2000. "Conflicts of Interest and Market Illiquidity in Bankruptcy Auctions: Theory and Tests," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(6), pages 2641-2692, December.
    14. Betker, Brian L, 1995. "Management's Incentives, Equity's Bargaining Power, and Deviations from Absolute Priority in Chapter 11 Bankruptcies," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 68(2), pages 161-183, April.
    15. 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.
    16. Franks, Julian R & Torous, Walter N, 1989. " An Empirical Investigation of U.S. Firms in Reorganization," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 44(3), pages 747-769, July.
    17. Weiss, Lawrence A., 1990. "Bankruptcy resolution: Direct costs and violation of priority of claims," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 285-314, October.
    18. McFadden, Daniel, 1974. "The measurement of urban travel demand," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 303-328, November.
    19. Bardos, Mireille, 1998. "Detecting the risk of company failure at the Banque de France," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(10-11), pages 1405-1419, October.
    20. White, Michelle J, 1989. "The Corporate Bankruptcy Decision," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 129-151, Spring.
    21. Thorburn, Karin S., 2000. "Bankruptcy auctions: costs, debt recovery, and firm survival," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 337-368, December.
    22. John Armour & Audrey Hsu & Adrian Walters, 2006. "The costs and benefits of secured creditor control in bankruptcy: Evidence from the UK," Working Papers wp332, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhu, Xiaoquan & Peng, Hongfeng & Zhang, Zijian, 2020. "The nexus of judicial efficiency, social burden and default risk: Cross-country evidence," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    2. Blazy, Régis & Chopard, Bertrand & Nigam, Nirjhar, 2013. "Building legal indexes to explain recovery rates: An analysis of the French and English bankruptcy codes," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 1936-1959.
    3. Régis Blazy & Joël Petey & Laurent Weill, 2018. "Serving the creditors after insolvency filings: from value creation to value distribution," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 331-375, April.
    4. Jaka Cepec & Peter Grajzl & Katarina Zajc, 2016. "Debt Recovery in Firm Liquidations: Do Liquidation Trustees Matter?," Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia, Finanza e Statistica 24/2016, Università di Perugia, Dipartimento Economia.
    5. Stéphane Esquerré, 2019. "Court structure and legal efficiency, the case of French échevinage in bankruptcy courts," Working Papers hal-02305492, HAL.
    6. Jan Plaček & Luboš Smrčka & Markéta Arltová & Jaroslav Schönfeld, 2016. "The Relationship Between GDP Per Inhabitant and the Quality of Insolvency Proceedings (An Analysis on the Basis of Surveying Five Groups of Countries)," Ekonomika a Management, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2016(4).
    7. Cepec, Jaka & Grajzl, Peter, 2020. "Debt-to-equity conversion in bankruptcy reorganization and post-bankruptcy firm survival," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    8. Ayadi, Rim & Abid, Ilyes & Guesmi, Khaled, 2021. "Survival of reorganized firms in France," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    9. Stéphane Esquerré, 2019. "How do judges judge? Evidence of local effect on French bankruptcy judgments," Working Papers hal-02291688, HAL.
    10. Luboš Smrčka & Jaroslav Schönfeld, 2014. "Several Conclusions from Research of Insolvency Cases in the Czech Republic," Central European Business Review, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2014(1), pages 13-19.
    11. Blazy, Régis & Esquerré, Stéphane, 2021. "The CV effect: To what extent does the chance to reorganize depend on a bankruptcy judge’s profile?," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    12. Araujo, Aloisio & Ferreira, Rafael & Lagaras, Spyridon & Moraes, Flavio & Ponticelli, Jacopo & Tsoutsoura, Margarita, 2023. "The labor effects of judicial bias in bankruptcy," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(2).
    13. Jaroslav Schönfeld & Luboš Smrčka & Eva Kislingerová & Jakub Erlitz, 2014. "Bankruptcies in Czech Republic: Reality identified by examining the statistical," Ekonomika a Management, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2014(2).
    14. Régis BLAZY & Stéphane ESQUERRE, 2019. "The CV effect: How far do the chances to reorganize depend on the bankruptcy judges’ profile?," Working Papers of LaRGE Research Center 2019-07, Laboratoire de Recherche en Gestion et Economie (LaRGE), Université de Strasbourg.
    15. Luboš SMRÈKA & Markéta ARLTOVÁ & Jaroslav SCHÖNFELD, 2017. "Quality of Insolvency Proceedings in Selected Countries – Analysis Focused on Recovery Rates, Costs and Duration," REVISTA ADMINISTRATIE SI MANAGEMENT PUBLIC, Faculty of Administration and Public Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 2017(28), pages 116-132, June.
    16. Jaka Cepec & Peter Grajzl & Katarina Zajc, 2016. "Debt Recovery in Firm Liquidations: Do Liquidation Trustees Matter?," CESifo Working Paper Series 6034, CESifo.
    17. Redha Fares, 2022. "Bankruptcy, Performance and Market Selection: Evidence from Firms in France," Erudite Ph.D Dissertations, Erudite, number ph22-01 edited by Claude Mathieu, December.
    18. Stéphane Esquerré, 2019. "Don't feed the zombies Essay on survival of bankrupt firms in French bankrupcty courts," Working Papers hal-02305501, HAL.
    19. Luboš Smrčka & Markéta Arltová & Jaroslav Schönfeld, 2013. "Příčiny neúspěchu prosazování sanačních postupů v insolvenční realitě [Reasons for the Failure to Implement Financial Rehabilitation Procedures in Insolvent Reality]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2013(2), pages 188-208.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Régis Blazy & Bertrand Chopard & Agnès Fimayer & Jean-Daniel Guigou, 2007. "Financial versus Social Efficiency of Corporate Bankruptcy Law: the French Dilemma?," LSF Research Working Paper Series 07-02, Luxembourg School of Finance, University of Luxembourg.
    2. Blazy, Régis & Martel, Jocelyn & Nigam, Nirjhar, 2014. "The choice between informal and formal restructuring: The case of French banks facing distressed SMEs," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 248-263.
    3. Carapeto, Maria, 2007. "An examination of multiple plans in Chapter 11 reorganizations," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 279-293, October.
    4. Régis Blazy & Joël Petey & Laurent Weill, 2018. "Serving the creditors after insolvency filings: from value creation to value distribution," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 331-375, April.
    5. Bharath, Sreedhar T. & Panchapegesan, Venky & Werner, Ingrid, 2007. "The Changing Nature of Chapter 11," Working Paper Series 2008-4, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    6. Li, Yuanzhi & Zhong, Zhaodong (Ken), 2013. "Investing in Chapter 11 stocks: Trading, value, and performance," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 33-60.
    7. Michelle J. White, 2005. "Economic Analysis of Corporate and Personal Bankruptcy Law," NBER Working Papers 11536, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Xavier Giné & Inessa Love, 2010. "Do Reorganization Costs Matter for Efficiency? Evidence from a Bankruptcy Reform in Colombia," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(4), pages 833-864.
    9. Bart Leyman, 2012. "The uneasy case for rehabilitating small firms under the 1997-reorganization law in Belgium: evidence from reorganization plans," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 533-560, December.
    10. Régis Blazy & Nicolae Stef, 2020. "Bankruptcy procedures in the post-transition economies," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 7-64, August.
    11. Gilles Recasens, 2003. "Faut-il adopter un système pro-créanciers de défaillances? Une revue de la littérature," Revue Finance Contrôle Stratégie, revues.org, vol. 6(1), pages 119-153, March.
    12. Blazy, Régis & Chopard, Bertrand & Nigam, Nirjhar, 2013. "Building legal indexes to explain recovery rates: An analysis of the French and English bankruptcy codes," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 1936-1959.
    13. Hege, Ulrich, 2003. "Workouts, court-supervised reorganization and the choice between private and public debt," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 233-269, March.
    14. B. Espen Eckbo & Karin S. Thorburn, 2009. "Bankruptcy as an Auction Process: Lessons from Sweden," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 21(3), pages 38-52, June.
    15. Lucian Arye Bebchuk, 2002. "Ex Ante Costs of Violating Absolute Priority in Bankruptcy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(1), pages 445-460, February.
    16. Simeon Djankov & Oliver Hart & Caralee McLiesh & Andrei Shleifer, 2008. "Debt Enforcement around the World," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(6), pages 1105-1149, December.
    17. Bebchuk, Lucian Arye, 2001. "Ex Ante Costs of Violating Absolute Priority in Bankruptcy," CEPR Discussion Papers 2914, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Jaka Cepec & Peter Grajzl & Katarina Zajc, 2016. "Debt Recovery in Firm Liquidations: Do Liquidation Trustees Matter?," CESifo Working Paper Series 6034, CESifo.
    19. Antill, Samuel & Grenadier, Steven R., 2019. "Optimal capital structure and bankruptcy choice: Dynamic bargaining versus liquidation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 198-224.
    20. Martel, Jocelyn, 1996. "Solutions au stress financier," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 72(1), pages 51-78, mars.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:31:y:2011:i:2:p:126-141. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/irle .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.