Comparative Research On Individual Bankruptcy: Reform Of Modernization, Operation Mechanism And Abuse Prevention

This paper addresses individual bankruptcy with a comparativeapproach. Although bankruptcy law has an individual-system origin, thesocioeconomics problem faced by the current individual bankruptcy systemis dramatically different from the initial time. Since 1980s, a trend that thosemain market-economic entities began to modernize their individualbankruptcy system took place, with the reason that consumers'financialproblems and consumer bankruptcy came out of the surface after thedevelopment of the economy and credit industry. As the consumer creditcrisis expanded and the bankruptcy filing soared, a reform on individualbankruptcy focusing on consumer bankruptcy problem had been brought upto the schedule, and gradually put into practice. The wave of individualbankruptcy filing, however, did not only bring in the necessity to reviewindividual bankruptcy system to deal with the consumer bankruptcy, but alsostrike another problem on abuse of bankruptcy which was not to be ignored,particularly when"debtor-friendly"model has been widely recognized. Anoverview over the reform of modernization and prevention of abuse bycountries like United States, United Kingdom of Great Britain, Germany andJapan and learning a lesson from their experiences, therefore, will besignificantly necessary for addressing future problems related toestablishment of individual bankruptcy in China. This paper examines thedevelopment process of individual bankruptcy system in those mainmarket-economic entities and analyzes the operation mechanism of suchsystem from social elements, different models adopted and basic objects andprinciples. It is the finding of this paper that those entities share the featuresas encouraging out-of-court mediation and negotiation for debts disputes, separating individual and corporation bankruptcy system, setting economyand efficiency as the important objects of individual bankruptcy system andmaking the debt reorganization procedure as the core of individualbankruptcy system and this paper suggests China's legislature pay attentionto this finding. This paper also argues that both subject and object abuse ofbankruptcy should be noticed and need respectively different ideas andmeasures to be effectively prevented.