Corporate Bankruptcy: Where Does it Leave You?

Corporations can file for bankruptcy, just like individuals. Bankruptcy is the legal declaration that you cannot pay your debts. However, the problem arises when the corporation is a large public company that has given out thousands of shares of stock to different stockholders. If you are one of these stockholders, you may be wondering how this company’s bankruptcy will affect you.

Don’t worry—when you are a stockholder, although you own a tiny piece of the company, you personally are not financially responsible for the company declaring bankruptcy. You may lose a lot of money because the value of the stock might drop to zero, but creditors won’t be banging you’re your door asking for millions, that’s for sure! However, as a stockholder, you are responsible to continue to understand how the company is operating throughout the bankruptcy. You do have a small say and how it operates.

Companies can choose to file either chapter 11 or chapter 7 bankruptcy. Most choose to file chapter 11. This means that, although the company cannot currently pay off its debts, it is hoping that with some help and with reorganization the company can be profitable again. The company’s stock can continue to trade while this is occurring. Sometimes a trustee and creditors will handle the reorganization, and sometime the new owners will handle it. It depends on the specific situation.

In this case, when the reorganization plan is complete, you as a stockholder will get a vote. You should read everything sent carefully, and if you agree vote in favor. If you do not agree, vote against. Your voice does make a difference, because if enough people vote against, the company cannot carry through with the plan.

However, in some cases, this is not how companies choose to proceed. If the company is deeply in debt and does not see any chance for coming back from this debt, even after a reorganization, the company will declare a chapter 7 bankruptcy and liquidate. When a company liquidates, the trustee sells all of the assets to pay off creditors. For, secured debts are repaid, and then unsecured debts are repaid. If there’s any money left, it is split amount he stockholders, but this is usually not the case.

The bottom line is that bankruptcy is bad for everyone. It is important to follow the things happening in your company so that you are aware of things like this that could be on the horizon. The stock market is a gamble, and sometimes it does not pay off.


Bankruptcy fraud

Even though a bankruptcy can sit on your record or on your companies record for a very long time, and even though it can make it nearly impossible for you to get loans, get credit or even do any large financial trading, there is still the factor that remains that once you have filed for bankruptcy, your debts are most likely going to be taken care of. This had led to many advancements in bankruptcy fraud, and has led in turn to a crackdown on this fraud by the government, which is going to hopefully be able to take care of too many different bankruptcies and get more and more people back on their feet in the correct manner.

Bankruptcy fraud can be done in several ways, and some of them are quite hard to catch. One thing that is done is when someone files for bankruptcy but really doesn’t need to file for it. They might hide most of their assets by giving them to others to own or hold, and by not disclosing them. This means that the assets that they do have are taken and sold, and their debts are forgiven, and once the bankruptcy act is closed, these people simply get their property back from wherever they had it, and they are in much better shape than they were before, even with the mark on their credit. If you have enough property and you hide it from the government, then even though your credit says you have filed for bankruptcy, you can still find ways to pay for things because you still have the assets.

Bankruptcy fraud is dangerous because it is hurtful to the people who file bankruptcy when they actually have to. Those that are filing in fraudulent manners are tying up the court system and are tying up the resources that the other people need in order to actually get their debts taken care of. This is detrimental to the whole process. It also isn’t fair to the creditors because if someone files bankruptcy and hides their property, the creditors are not going to get everything that has been owed to them and are going to find themselves out of luck. Because of the fact that bankruptcy fraud can be harmful to so many different people, the government has cracked down on it and now makes sure that being caught with bankruptcy fraud is something that is very punishable. It is also not easy to get away with in any way.