Publication:
Measureable Results! Doing Business Project Encourages Economies to Reform Insolvency Frameworks

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (1.21 MB)
537 downloads
English Text (29.11 KB)
59 downloads
Published
2013-01
ISSN
Date
2014-02-12
Editor(s)
Abstract
Over the past 10 years, nearly 100 economies have reformed their insolvency regimes as a result of many factors, such as financial crises and to some extent the International Finance Corporation, or IFC and World Bank doing business project. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, governments around the world implemented extensive insolvency reforms aimed at strengthening regulatory mechanisms for resolving insolvency cases, to stimulate entrepreneurship and generate a more efficient allocation of market resources. This smart lesson discusses two of the main best practices that stem from the key reform areas: determination of business viability, and introduction of reorganization proceedings.
Link to Data Set
Citation
Saltane, Valentina; Chen, Rong; Guzman, Nuria Moya. 2013. Measureable Results! Doing Business Project Encourages Economies to Reform Insolvency Frameworks. IFC smart lessons brief;. © http://hdl.handle.net/10986/17042 License: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO.
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
  • Publication
    Taking Advantage of a Window of Opportunity
    (International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC, 2017-02) Odhiambo, Alban; Kamajugo, Richard; Zizane, Jackie
    Rwanda’s government and private sector took a bold step towards achieving a critical reform agenda with the design and implementationof a single window for international trade system. This implementation marked the first successful collaboration among Rwanda’s numerous agencies that over see the country’s cross-border trade. Addressing the demands of a diverse group of stakeholders was certainly daunting, but effective stakeholder engagement and change management efforts have produced results that are exerting a major impact on the efficiency of goods into and transiting Rwanda. Driving the Single Window project was an aspiration for greater collaboration at the level of government-to-government, business-to business and government-to-business. Rwanda’s membership in the East African Community, which is a Single Customs Territory was another critical factor. By addressing national needs and incorporating a regional focus and outreach in the management of cargo, the Rwanda Electronic Single Window has achieved success.
  • Publication
    Opening Opportunities
    (International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC, 2017-02) Sichilima, Mupelwa; Gikonyo, Aknyi
    One of the most challenging experiences for businesses involved in cross bordertrade along Kenya’s border points is the clearance of imports and exports. Until 2015, the process of clearing cargo was largely manual. More than 29 different government agencies with different roles in the clearance of international trade goods required businesses to apply for and submit different sets of cargo clearance documents. The World Bank Group’s trade and competitiveness team, through the Kenya investment climate program, has supported the government of Kenya in implementing the Kenya National Electronic Single Window System, also known as the Kenya TradeNet System. This smart lesson describes the system, how it works, its accomplishments, and lessons learned along the way.
  • Publication
    PortNet in Morocco
    (International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC, 2017-01) Hafsi, Nadia
    In 2008, Morocco’s National Ports Agency launched a project to create a national single-window platform for Morocco’s foreign tr ade. The process was long and difficult, and its success is owing in large part to the leadership and focus demonstrated by PORTNET S.A., the company created in 2012 to be in charge of the project. This SmartLesson describes the steps PORTNET took to forge a strategic alliance between public and private stakeholders in Morocco to achieve a common, mutually beneficial aim: streamline Morocco’s foreign trade procedures and improve its business climate.
  • Publication
    Jamaica’s Trade Facilitation Task Force
    (International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC, 2017-02) Tomlinson, Kanika Y.
    Jamaica is taking steps to strengthen its trade environment as a way to improve the ease and ways of doing business and stimulate growth. In February 2015, Jamaica formed its National Committee on Trade Facilitation, known as the Trade Facilitation Task Force (TF2). During its first year, theTask Force had fruitful consultations with its members in the public and private sectors on how to increase trade facilitation in Jamaica. These consultations laid the foundation for the creation of a Trade Facilitation Project Plan, currently in use as a guide for the execution and monitoringof Jamaica’s trade-competitiveness activities. This SmartLesson describes the establishment of the Task Force and the progress of the Project Plan— and shares key lessons learned along the way.
  • Publication
    Walking the Last Mile
    (International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC, 2017-02) Kastrati, Pranvera; Meko, Mirela; Saragiotis, Periklis
    Albania’s authorized economic operators (AEO) program is not yet operational, even though the country has adopted the necessary European Union (EU) legal and regulatory frameworks. This smart lesson outlines shortcomings in the adoption of AEO provisions under the European community customs code (CCC) as well as the obstacles the national government has faced putting in place the complementary reform measures necessary to ensure practical effectiveness. Lessons learned from the Albanian experience may be instructive for other countries in the central European free trade agreement region as they look to operationalize their AEO programs without diverting from AEO guidelines as set out in the EU acquis.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    Doing Business 2011 : Making a Difference for Entrepreneurs - Comparing Business Regulation in 183 Economies
    (World Bank, 2010) International Finance Corporation; World Bank
    Doing Business 2011: making a difference for entrepreneurs is the eighth in a series of annual reports investigating regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 183 economies, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, over time. A set of regulations affecting 11 areas of the life of a business's are covered: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and closing a business. Data in Doing Business 2011 are current as of June 1, 2010. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms have worked, where, and why. The paper includes the following headings: overview, starting a business, dealing with construction permits, employing workers, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, and closing a business.
  • Publication
    “No Way Out” : The Lack of Efficient Insolvency Regimes in the MENA Region
    (2011-03-01) Uttamchandani, Mahesh
    This paper provides a comparative summary of the payout phase of insolvency systems in the MENA Region. Countries in the region generally have weaker restructuring and liquidation systems than those in most other regions. The paper summarizes many of the weaknesses common across the region.
  • Publication
    Lithuania : Banking System Assessment
    (Washington, DC, 2009-12) World Bank
    The Bank of Lithuania (BoL), the Central Bank, was established in 1990. BoL has the exclusive right to grant and revoke licenses to local and foreign banks and to supervise their activities. Private commercial banking boomed from 1991 to 1994 while bank regulation was lax. In late 1995, a bank crisis caused failures of most of the Lithuanian banks, and the remaining banks resulted in better managed and supervised institutions. BoL also applied tougher regulation on the banking sector. All commercial banks now need to have their financial records audited every year by an international auditing firm. This report includes the following headings: risks and contingency crisis management in the Lithuanian banking system; credit risk and regulatory issues; and description of corporate debt restructuring procedures in Lithuania.
  • Publication
    Republic of Serbia Financial Sector Assessment Program Update
    (Washington, DC, 2009-10) International Monetary Fund; World Bank
    Nonperforming Loans (NPLs) in the banking system constituted 16.5 percent of total loans, owing primarily to the corporate sector. The Credit Bureau, maintained by the Association of Serbian Banks, also discloses dramatic increases in corporate and retail defaults over the past year. NPL resolution and loan loss mitigation is hampered by a still evolving but uneven collateral and enforcement framework that complicates restructuring and leads to delays and lower recoveries in execution procedures. Corporate debt resolution is further complicated by a pattern of corporate misconduct designed to circumvent a creditor's legitimate enforcement rights. This is particularly acute in response to account blockages. In an effort to survive, business owners frequently engage in a pattern of corporate fraud to avoid their legitimate obligations by creating alter ego or shell companies through which to conduct their ongoing business activities, with all funds passing through the new legal entity. That entity is free from debt and can open bank accounts, engage in contracts, and carry on business as usual using the corporate assets of the prior legal entity under cleverly disguised lease or contractual use obligations. In most modern economies, such practices constitute fraud or fraudulent transfers that can carry stiff penalties, including loss of business privileges. Other reported abuses include applying for voluntary dissolution during which the owner or a friendly receiver continues to operate the business for years in an apparent wind-down of the business, while ignoring creditor claims.
  • Publication
    Subnational Insolvency : Cross-Country Experiences and Lessons
    (2008-01) Liu, Lili; Waibel, Michael
    Subnational insolvency is a reoccurring event in development, as demonstrated by historical and modern episodes of subnational defaults in both developed and developing countries. Insolvency procedures become more important as countries decentralize expenditure, taxation, and borrowing, and broaden subnational credit markets. As the first cross-country survey of procedures to resolve subnational financial distress, this paper has particular relevance for decentralizing countries. The authors explain central features and variations of subnational insolvency mechanisms across countries. They identify judicial, administrative, and hybrid procedures, and show how entry point and political factors drive their design. Like private insolvency law, subnational insolvency procedures predictably allocate default risk, while providing breathing space for orderly debt restructuring and fiscal adjustment. Policymakers' desire to mitigate the tension between creditor rights and the need to maintain essential public services, to strengthen ex ante fiscal rules, and to harden subnational budget constraints are motivations specific to the public sector.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Saving Viable Businesses : The Effect of Insolvency Reform
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-09) Klapper, Leora
    The 2008 financial crisis and consequent rise in corporate insolvencies highlight the clear need for efficient bankruptcy systems to liquidate unviable firms and reorganize viable ones and to do so in a way that maximizes the proceeds for creditors, shareholders, employees, and other stakeholders. This note summarizes the empirical literature on the effect of insolvency reforms on economic and financial activity. Overall, research suggests that effective reforms increase timely repayments, reduce the cost of credit, and lower the rate of liquidation among distressed firms.
  • Publication
    Digital Africa
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13) Begazo, Tania; Dutz, Mark Andrew; Blimpo, Moussa
    All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.
  • Publication
    Overview of Insolvency and Debt Restructuring Reforms in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic and Past Financial Crises
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-03-08) Menezes, Antonia; Gropper, Akvile
    This note is part of the series of COVID-19 Notes developed by the World Bank Group’s Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions (EFI) team. By highlighting concrete examples of insolvency and debt restructuring reforms undertaken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as past crises, this note highlights the importance of sound insolvency and debt restructuring regimes which are lacking in many emerging markets. Countries with under-developed or nascent insolvency frameworks should consider prioritizing the reforms covered in this note to improve their readiness to deal with a spike in business insolvencies. The note reviews insolvency and debt restructuring reforms aimed at addressing the economic effects of the COVID-19 crisis during two stages: the crisis containment stage and the crisis recovery stage. Crisis containment includes short-term insolvency law reforms adopted at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak to prevent businesses from being systematically pushed into insolvency. The objective of the reforms implemented during this stage was to ‘flatten the curve’ of insolvency cases and reduce the burden on institutions. Crisis recovery, the second stage, assesses actions taken by some countries during the COVID-19 crisis as well as during previous financial crises to address the medium-to-long term challenges of high levels of firm distress. The objectives of these second-stage reforms are generally to strengthen the institutional capacity and overall functioning of a country’s insolvency regime and to prevent a potential systemic banking crisis caused by elevated levels of non-performing loans.
  • Publication
    Business Ready 2024
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-03) World Bank
    Business Ready (B-READY) is a new World Bank Group corporate flagship report that evaluates the business and investment climate worldwide. It replaces and improves upon the Doing Business project. B-READY provides a comprehensive data set and description of the factors that strengthen the private sector, not only by advancing the interests of individual firms but also by elevating the interests of workers, consumers, potential new enterprises, and the natural environment. This 2024 report introduces a new analytical framework that benchmarks economies based on three pillars: Regulatory Framework, Public Services, and Operational Efficiency. The analysis centers on 10 topics essential for private sector development that correspond to various stages of the life cycle of a firm. The report also offers insights into three cross-cutting themes that are relevant for modern economies: digital adoption, environmental sustainability, and gender. B-READY draws on a robust data collection process that includes specially tailored expert questionnaires and firm-level surveys. The 2024 report, which covers 50 economies, serves as the first in a series that will expand in geographical coverage and refine its methodology over time, supporting reform advocacy, policy guidance, and further analysis and research.
  • Publication
    A Global View of Business Insolvency Systems
    (Washington, DC: World Bank and Brill, 2010) Westbrook, Lawrence; Booth, Charles D.; Paulus, Christoph G.; Rajak, Harry; Westbrook, Lawrence
    The purpose of this book is to provide a coherent overview of the insolvency systems found around the world. Its intended audience includes academics, judges, lawyers, and policymakers. Its focus is on businesses rather than natural persons. The authors hope to give the reader a sense of some of the principal approaches to managing the general default of a business debtor. The authors will discuss the nature of the costs and benefits arising from the various policy choices legislators have made. In the process, they will emphasize the close interrelationship among various elements of an insolvency regime so that these elements can be viewed as part of an overall system and not just as a series of policy decisions about particular rules, such as the method of initiation of an insolvency case or the balance struck in setting the boundaries of an avoidance power. The organization of the book reflects our view of insolvency laws as complete systems, including not only the 'insolvency' or 'bankruptcy' code of a jurisdiction but also closely related laws and the institutional framework in which those laws are applied. The book takes a systematic approach to a variety of topics related to credit and insolvency regulation. The functional analysis starts with the study of debt enforcement, continues with an examination of general corporate insolvency legislation, corporate rehabilitation proceedings, informal workouts, employee rights, judicial and administrative institutions, and the considerations key to cross-border insolvency proceedings.