Bankruptcy blog

McLellan Stores were a 20th-century chain of five and dime stores in the United States.

The stores were founded by William Walker McLellan (died April 1960 at age 87) in 1917. The chain grew to 200 variety stores, but the Great Depression drove the company into bankruptcy. The company was able to emerge from bankruptcy without reorganization, but control was obtained by United Stores Corporation which had bought shares on the stock market.

McLellan Stores merged with McCrory Stores in 1958. Many of the stores were converted to McCrory’s or J.J. Newberry’s (owned by the same company), and have ultimately been closed as McCrory’s entered bankruptcy in the 1990s.

Like many similar stores, it had segregated lunch counters in its stores in the southern United States until protests (including sit-ins) in the early 1960s forced it to desegregate.

December 2001 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December

Events

• December 2 - Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection five days after Dynegy canceled a US$8.4 billion buyout bid (as of 2003 this was the largest bankruptcy in the history of the United States).
• December 4 - Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah ibni Almarhum Sultan Hisamuddin Alam Shah Al-Haj, Sultan of Selangor and 11th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia dies in office.
• December 4 - The Second Child Asuka Langley Soryu was born
• December 13 - Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin, Raja of Perlis becomes the 12th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia
• December 14 - Annular solar eclipse
• December 18 - Two men, Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad al-Zery, are secretly deported to Egypt from Sweden after a request from the United States in what is believed to be a CIA-led operation. (Washington Post)
• December 20 - The Argentine government of President Fernando De la Rúa collapses amidst rioting and violence throughout the country. See December 2001 riots (Argentina)
• December 27 - The People’s Republic of China is granted permanent normal trade status with the United States.

Michael Otto (born April 12, 1943, in Kulm (Chełmno)) is the head of Otto Group, the world’s largest mail order company, with $24 billion in sales in fiscal year 2003. Thanks to a 30% rise in Internet sales last year, Otto also maintains its position as the Web’s second-biggest retailer, behind Amazon.com.

They were the former owners of Spiegel, Inc., (the parent company of Eddie Bauer and former owners of Spiegel catalog), which filed for bankruptcy on March 17, 2003. On May 25, 2005, Spiegel, Inc., emerged from bankruptcy renamed Eddie Bauer Holdings and is now owned primarily by Commerzbank. The Otto Group no long has any stake in the company.

Otto and his family own extensive real estate in Canada and in the United States, shopping centers in Germany and part of home-furnishings chain Crate & Barrel. Known as a committed environmentalist, his company has long touted environmentally safe products.

External links

• Forbes World’s Richest People
• Otto Group

Judgement Debtor, in English or American law, a person against whom a judgment ordering him to pay a sum of money has been obtained and remains unsatisfied. Such a person may be examined as to whether any and what debts are owing to him, and if the judgment debt is of the necessary amount he may be made bankrupt if he fails to comply with a bankruptcy notice (in US, Law, an involuntary petition) served on him by the judgment creditors.

In the past, the judgment debtor could have been committed to prison or have a receiving order made against him in a judgment summons under the Debtors Act 1869.

A 403(b) plan is a tax advantaged retirement savings plan available for public education organizations, some non-profit employers (only US Tax Code 501(c)(3) organizations) and self-employed ministers in the United States. It has tax treatment extremely similar to a 401(k) plan, especially after the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. Simply put, employee salary deferrals into a 403(b) plan are made before income tax is paid on it, and allowed to grow tax deferred until the money is taxed as income when taken out of the plan. Beginning in 2006, 403(b) and 401(k) plans may also include designated Roth contributions, i.e., after-tax contributions, which, if certain requirements are met, will allow tax-free withdrawals. Primarily the designated Roth contributions have to be in the plan for at least five taxable years.

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) does not require 403(b) plans to be technically “qualified” plans, i.e., plans governed by US Tax Code 401(a), but have the same general appearance as qualified plans. The option is available but it is not known how prevalent or if any 403(b) has been started or amended to be ERISA qualified because the main advantage of ERISA plans for participants has been in bankruptcy of the account holder which has been removed by the October 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act. However, they are very different in some fundamental ways. To the participant, the plan appears almost exactly the same and the options available are very similar. The only important differences for the participant are some additional ways that they can withdraw employer money, not salary-deferral money, before the typical 59 1/2 age restriction, but only if the plan is funded with annuities, not mutual funds. The government is proposing that this difference be eliminated in proposed regulations that are expected to be finalized in 2007.

From a plan administration standpoint, 403(b) plans do not have many of the same technical difficulties that 401(k)s do, such as discrimination testing, especially if the plan is not an ERISA plan. If the plan is an ERISA plan (the employer makes contributions to employee accounts), there are additional restrictions and administrative issues applicable to those employer contributions, but not if a plan of a government employer which is not subject to discrimination testing.

Salary-deferral contributions are still not subject to complicated discrimination testing. Instead, 403(b) plans are subject to universal availability which, briefly and in general, means all employees must be permitted to make salary-deferral contributions. Additionally, 403(b) plans have far simpler and far less costly annual reporting requirements on Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 5500, including not having the expensive independent auditor requirement applicable to qualified plans with more than 100 plan participants.

ERISA plans have bankruptcy protection

Prior to the bankruptcy reform act in 2005, a 403(b) that was not an ERISA plan was not accorded protected status as property that could be claimed as exempt by the debtor under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. In In re Barnes, 264 B.R. 415 (Bankr. E.D. Mich. 2001) Judge Spector held that the fixed income annuity was not such a trust and could be reached by creditors. The variable account was held to fall within 541(c)(2) and was thus protected. Under the revised bankruptcy laws, 403(b) accounts, IRAs and other retirement accounts are, in general, protected from creditors in bankruptcy.

For this reason, having an ERISA anti-alienation clause[1] was protective of pensions prior to the bankruptcy law revisions, giving those pensions the same protection as a spendthrift trust. Some critics argued that this is disparate treatment of similar pension schemes and that more consistent protection was called for. The United States Congress took this argument to heart in the 2005 bankruptcy reform.

See also

• Employee Retirement Income Security Act
• List of finance topics
• 401(k)
• 457(b)
• 457(f)
• Individual retirement account
• Taxation in the United States
• Text of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act - ERISA - 29 U.S. Code Chapter 18

External links

• IRS Publication 4406

FLYi, Inc., () previously known as Atlantic Coast Airlines Holdings, Inc., was a Delaware airline holding company based in Dulles, Virginia. The company was currently in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, and formerly operated Independence Air.

History

Atlantic Coast Airlines Holdings, Inc. was a commuter airline formed in 1989. Atlantic Coast Airlines operated as United Express and Delta Connection.
Upon termination of their codeshare agreements, in 2004 the company changed its name to FLYi, Inc, representing the airline’s new name, Independence Air.

On November 7, 2005, FLYi, Inc. and its subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. This press release declares that they expected to attract new investors within sixty days of the filing.

Due to Flyi not finding an investor as expected, Flyi ceased operations on January 5, 2006 at 7:00 p.m. UTC-5. The airline’s operating certificate was purchased by Northwest Airlines and will operate as Compass Airlines.

External links

• FLYi, Inc. and Independence Air web site

The term means test refers to an investigative process undertaken to determine whether or not an individual or family is eligible to receive certain types of benefits from the government. The “test” can consist of quantifying the party’s income, or assets, or a combination of both.

During the Great Depression, the test was used to screen applicants for such programs as Home Relief in the United States, and starting in the 1960s, for benefits such as those provided by the Food Stamp Program.

In 1992, third-party Presidential candidate Ross Perot proposed that future Social Security benefits be subjected to a means test; though this was hailed by some as a potential solution to an impending crisis in funding the program, few other political candidates since Perot have publicly made the same suggestion, which would require costly investigations and might associate accepting those benefits with social stigma.

In 2005, the United States substantially changed its bankruptcy laws, adding a means test to prevent wealthy debtors from filing for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. The bankruptcy means test is rather complex but quite generous and most debtors have no trouble meeting its requirements. Consumers can use a means test calculator to determine their eligibility.

Examples of means testing in the healthcare sector include Medicaid (USA), Medifund (Singapore) and Medical Cards (Ireland) Means Testing for Medical Subsidies.

External links

• U.S. Bankruptcy Courts information on means testing
• Free means test calculator (USA Only)

References

A petition mill is a fraud in which the perpetrator poses as a financial advisor, sometimes as a credit counselor or paralegal, filing hastily-prepared bankruptcy documents in the name of victims who come to the advisor as clients. The bankruptcy filing is often both incomplete and inappropriate for the victim’s condition; and, often, the victim does not even realize that a bankruptcy has been filed.

Victims are people in financial trouble who believe they are becoming clients of a professional operation. The fraudster promises to make the foreclosures, evictions, repossessions, high interest rates on loans, and other debt problems go away. The victim pays a large initial fee for the fraudster’s services, and the fraudster usually has the victim sign blank documents. Sometimes the victim is also told to make their usual payments directly to the fraudulent advisor instead of the real creditors, or to transfer their real estate to the fraudster. The payments are stolen by the fraudster instead of being used to pay victims’ debts, and real estate is often deeded in fractional shares to other victims unknowingly under bankruptcy, complicating ownership to make foreclosures even more difficult by having multiple (fraudulent) bankruptcies involved in the property.

In other petition mill schemes, the fraudster simply creates summary bankruptcy filings for the victim. The victim is then told to file pro se in court and deny that anyone helped prepare the documents.

According to the United States Trustee Manual, volume 5, chapter 5, the following are warning signs of a petition mill scheme:

1. Pro se bankruptcy petition where the debtor says no one assisted him/her, but the debtor is clearly unfamiliar with the bankruptcy system
2. Pro se petition filed despite the debtor denying filing bankruptcy
3. Debtor failing to attend the section 341 meeting, where creditors and the United States Trustee first meet with the debtor
4. “Face sheet” (suspiciously small) filing with a single creditor listed, usually the mortgagee or the landlord
5. Debtor facing eviction, foreclosure, or repossession notice
6. Pattern of pro se debtors with identical paperwork form, style, and general content
7. Pattern of complaints from mortgagees or landlords
8. Debtors or others being solicited by petition mills that stress stopping evictions, etc.
9. Complaints by debtor that he/she has been making rent/mortgage/car payments to a third party (instead of to the original creditors)
10. Advertising in budget papers and using flyers to advertise bankruptcy and divorce assistance at a low, fixed fee
11. Implications that attorneys are supervising or approving the service
12. Requests for payment of filing fee in installments
13. Assets or liabilities not scheduled (filed in proper format)
14. Failure to properly fill out or file schedules
15. Use of chapter 7 (complete liquidation) when chapter 13 (reorganization) is clearly feasible

See also

• Credit counseling
• Fraudulent conveyance

A shareholder or stockholder is an individual or company (including a corporation) that legally owns one or more shares of stock in a joint stock company. A company’s shareholders collectively own that company. Thus, such companies strive to enhance shareholder value.

Stockholders are granted special privileges depending on the class of stock, including the right to vote (usually one vote per share owned, but sometimes this is not the case) on matters such as elections to the board of directors, the right to propose shareholder resolutions, the right to share in distributions of the company’s income, the right to purchase new shares issued by the company, and the right to a company’s assets during a liquidation of the company. However, stockholder’s rights to a company’s assets are subordinate to the rights of the company’s creditors. This means that stockholders typically receive nothing if a company is liquidated after bankruptcy (if the company had had enough to pay its creditors, it would not have entered bankruptcy), although a stock may have value after a bankruptcy if there is the possibility that the debts of the company will be restructured.

Stockholders or shareholders are considered by some to be a partial subset of stakeholders, which may include anyone who has a direct or indirect equity interest in the business entity or someone with even a non-pecuniary interest in a non-profit organization. Thus it might be common to call volunteer contributors to an association stakeholders, even though they are not shareholders.

Although directors and officers of a company are bound by fiduciary duties to act in the best interest of the shareholders, the shareholders themselves normally do not have such duties towards each other.

However, in a few unusual cases, some courts have been willing to imply such a duty between shareholders. For example, in California, majority shareholders of closely held corporations have a duty to not destroy the value of the shares held by minority shareholders.

The largest shareholders (in terms of percentages of companies owned) are often mutual funds, especially passively managed exchange-traded funds.

See also

• Stakeholder
• Corporate governance
• Shareholders’ meeting
• Stock
• Stock trader
• [[Investor relations]

References

Bush Industries, based in Jamestown, New York, United States, is one of the leading ready-to-assemble furniture companies in the U.S., with sales of around US$300 Million/yr. It went on Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2000, and emerged as a private company in 2001.

External links

• Bush Industries Official Website

The United States Bank Holiday of the Great Depression took place in 1933 when Franklin D. Roosevelt closed the banks from March 6 to March 10 to keep depositors from bankrupting the banking system by withdrawing all their money.

Banks were allowed to reopen when they could prove that the money in their reserves was greater than or equal to the money that had been deposited in. If the banks were unsound they would stay closed or could apply for a government loan in order to keep from declaring bankruptcy.

The United States Trustee Program is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that is responsible for overseeing the administration of bankruptcy cases and private trustees. The applicable federal law is found at 28 U.S.C. § 586 and 11 U.S.C. § 101, et seq.

In addition to the twenty-one United States Trustees, the program is administered by the Legislative Office for U.S. Trustees (EOUST), located in Washington, D.C., and 95 field offices. The United States Trustee is the federal official charged with enforcing civil bankruptcy laws in the United States.

Overview

The United States Attorney General generally appoints a separate United States Trustee for each of twenty-one geographical regions for a five year term. Each United States Trustee is removable from office by and works under the general supervision of the Attorney General (see and ). Each United States Trustee, an officer of the Department of Justice, is responsible for maintaining and supervising a panel of private trustees for Chapter 7 bankruptcy cases (see ). The United States Trustee has other duties including the oversight of administration of most bankruptcy cases and trustees (see generally 28 U.S.C. § 586(a)(3)).

Each of the twenty-one regional U.S. Trustees maintains an office in each judicial district within the trustee’s region, except for Alabama and North Carolina, which are not administered by the U.S. Trustee program.

The U.S. Trustee does not have prosecution powers, but is required by law to refer information regarding potential criminal violations of bankruptcy laws to the United States Attorney.Title 18 of the U.S. Code section 3057, which also applies to private trustees.

Interim trustees serve by the U.S. Trustee’s appointment in Chapter 7 cases. Generally the interim trustee is assigned at random from a “panel” of qualified individuals at the time a bankruptcy case is filed, and is automatically appointed as the “permanent” case trustee after the first meeting of creditors.

Due to the relative infrequency of filing of petitions for Chapter 12 (family farmer debt adjustment) relief, trustees for these cases are typically appointed on an ad hoc basis.

Each judicial district has one or more Standing Chapter 13 Trustees. The Standing Trustees are responsible for the administration of all Chapter 13 cases filed in their judicial district.

If for any reason all panel and/or standing trustees are disqualified or unable to perform, the U.S. Trustee may serve as trustee for a particular case under Chapter 7, 12 or 13. This very rarely happens.

The U.S. Trustee’s office conducts the first meeting of creditors in a Chapter 11 case. Most Chapter 11’s do not require the appointment of a trustee: however, in those cases which do, the U.S. Trustee oversees the appointed trustee’s handling of the case and, for good cause, can seek the removal or replacement of the trustee. The U.S. Trustee may not, however, serve as the case trustee in Chapter 11. Along with the creditors committees, the U.S. Trustee acts as the primary “watchdog” to ensure compliance with the Bankruptcy Code in cases where no trustee has been appointed.

Accounting staffers within the Trustee’s office review all debtor filings, and monitor trustee and attorney fees in all cases. Attorneys employed by the Trustee represent the office in United States bankruptcy court and pursue civil sanctions for some egregious violations of the law in Chapter 7, 12 and 13 cases.

Executive Office of the U.S. Trustee

The Executive Office of the U.S. Trustee (EOUST) is part of The United States Department of Justice (DOJ). The EOUST is the component of The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) responsible for overseeing the administration of bankruptcy cases and private trustees. The responsibility of the EOUST as the top level office controlling DOJ attorneys who monitor conduct in U.S. Bankruptcy Courts is analogous to that of The Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA) as responsible for prosecutors (District Attorneys) of the DOJ.

In contract with the EOUSA, the EOUST maintains indirect publicity and refers to its offices as the “U.S. Trustee Program”.

Criminal Referral

When a government attorney working at the EUOST or any of its regional or field offices observes or suspects any criminal activity, it must be referred to a District Attorneyhttp://law.onecle.com/uscode/18/3057.html for investigation and if warranted, prosecution. The official policy of the EOUST is to include a review of such criminal referrals as part of the employee evaluation for each DOJ attorney employeed as a U.S. Trustee.

References

See also

Bankruptcy in the United States.

External links

• United States Trustee Program home page

For other uses, see Seniority

In finance, seniority refers to the order of repayment in the event of bankruptcy.
Senior debt must be repaid before subordinated debt is repaid. More common: Ranking.

See also

• DIP Financing
• Preferential creditor
• Pari passu
• Secured creditor
• Security interest
• Second lien financing
  
• Unsecured creditor

For English civil servant, see Bruce Mann (civil servant).

Bruce H. Mann is the Carl F. Schipper, Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and a legal historian whose research focuses on the relationship among legal, social, and economic change in early America. He began at the Law School in Fall 2006, after being the Leon Meltzer Professor of Law and Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania.

In his latest book, Republic of Debtors: Bankruptcy in the Age of American Independence (winner 2003 SHEAR Book Prize; 2004 J. Willard Hurst Prize, awarded by Law and Society Association; and 2003 Littleton-Griswold Prize, awarded by the American Historical Association), Mann explores the legal, social, economic, moral, political and intellectual implications of debt and failure in the early American republic, revealing how problems of money, credit, and debt implicated questions of commerce and agriculture, nationalism and federalism, dependence and independence, even slavery and freedom.

Mann has been the keynote speaker at the annual conference of the Australia and New Zealand Law and History Society, and the annual convention of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys. His four teaching awards include three at Penn: the A. Leo Levin Award for Excellence in an Introductory Law Course; the Harvey Levin Memorial Award for Excellence in Teaching at the law school; and the university-wide Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Mann is married to Elizabeth Warren, who is the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.

Jongro Seojuk, or less known as Jongro Book Center, was the mecca of book shopping in Seoul, Korea for many book fanatics over the decades. It opened its door in 1907, with a 95 year old history, it was the place for university students, highschool students, anyone, looking for an opening of the mind came to Jongro Seojuk for solace. Jongro Seojuk became a famous rendezvous place for many people, where by the term “meet in front of Jongro Seojuk” became as commonplace as “meet in front of Seoul Station” It became the center of the literate and intellectually minded young people. It was even a famous meeting point among the non-literate.

History

It was started by the Church of the Message of Christ, in 1907, who bought a timber-built tile-roof house, first started off by selling books relating to Christianity, over the years it changed its name from Kyomoon Seogwan, Jongro Seogwan and in 1963, by adopting the name “Jongro Seojuk Center”, it became the leading bookstore of Seoul. Slowly over the 90s, the 300 strong employee base dwindled to a meager 50, and finally in 2002, not being able to reverse its $11.5 million deficit, it declared bankruptcy. It apparently looked for a third party buyer, but no one came to their rescue.

It declared bankruptcy in 2002, June, right in the middle of the Soccer World Cup 2002. The reasons for its bankruptcy were rumored being for its lack of parking space, introduction of internet book stores (this has little credence as other major book stores like Kyobo or Youngpoong has grown bigger every year), and general lack of customer service, the fact that one had climb through five different floors to look for a book, and its inadequate size. There was also voices criticising its flippant position of being so sure of its future, relying on old customers, being ran by people who believed that Jongro Seojuk would survive. It cared nothing for the growing expansion of the new Kyobo Moongo which opened its doors in 1981, it did not try to improve or change its image or store to match changing times. In essence, marketing failed, and customer-company relationship had become literally non-existent by the 1990s. It still managed to rake in a few loyal customers till the mid 90s, but after 2000, Jongro Seojuk was overshadowed by the new, and more modern book stores in Jongro.

Centenary Loss

The bankruptcy was quietly forgotten by many because of the World Cup, but millions of people remember the only book store that did not fail them if they looked for a book. After its bankruptcy, numerous people regretted the loss of the only cultural literary tradition in Korea that would’ve neared its centenary celebrations.

See also

• List of bookstore chains

For bankrupcty in Scotland see Sequestration

There is no single law on bankruptcy in the United Kingdom with there being one system for England and Wales, one for Northern Ireland and one for Scotland.

Bankruptcy Law

There are two main personal insolvency regimes in the UK: one for England and Wales and another for Scotland. In England and Wales the majority of personal insolvencies are “bankruptcies”. The remainder are Individual Voluntary Arrangements or IVAs, which are arrangements between the debtor and his or her creditors for the payment of the debts on different terms: for example by instalments, or over a period of time. These two forms of insolvency have close equivalents in Scotland, where bankruptcies are known as sequestrations and the equivalent of IVAs are Protected Trust Deeds, or PTDs.

In bankruptcy, an indebted individual sees his debts forgiven in return for surrendering his assets (and sometimes a limited proportion of his income). He is allowed however to retain so-called “exempt” assets such as tools-of-trade and basic necessities and the generosity of this exemption level has received much attention in the USA where it varies among states, potentially affecting bankruptcy filing rates.

Bankruptcy is handled by a Trustee in bankruptcy who must be either the Official Receiver (a civil servant) or a licensed insolvency practitioner.

Following the introduction of the Enterprise Act 2002’s bankruptcy provisions in April 2004, an England & Wales bankruptcy will now normally last no longer than 12 months and may be less, if the Official Receiver files in Court a certificate that his investigations are complete. However, in cases where the bankrupt is considered particularly culpable for his or her insolvency, the bankruptcy can last for up to 15 years, although such orders are rare.

Why are bankruptcies soaring?

Some claim that the Enterprise Act threatens massively to increase the number of bankruptcy cases. Indeed, bankruptcies have risen considerably since the change. However they were already on an upward trend, and the rise is mirrored in Scotland, where there has been no legislation change.

A popular alternative explanation for the run-up in UK insolvencies is “destigmatisation” - people, it is said, are becoming less ashamed of going bankrupt. This is hard to prove, but some evidence is provided by figures showing that, increasingly, bankruptcy petitions are filed by debtors themselves, rather than their creditors.

The UK average household debt-to-income ratio has risen substantially in recent years, leading some to attribute the rise in insolvencies to excessive borrowing. However, the ratio of debt repayment costs to income has remained quite low, weakening this claim. Moreover, the rise in borrowing could itself be a reflection of a lower “fear” of bankruptcy - the destigmatisation effect again.

Insolvency figures

• (p) are provisional figures
• Sources: http://www.dtistats.net/sd/insolv200505/table2.htm http://www.dtistats.net/sd/insolv200602/table2.htm

External links

• British household indebtedness and financial stress: a household-level picture [PDF] Quarterly Bulletin, Personal Sector Articles, Winter 2004 (Report for Bank of England)
• Website of the Insolvency Service in the UK
• National Debtline Bankruptcy information document

Michael Otto (born April 12, 1943, in Kulm (Chełmno)) is the head of Otto Group, the world’s largest mail order company, with $24 billion in sales in fiscal year 2003. Thanks to a 30% rise in Internet sales last year, Otto also maintains its position as the Web’s second-biggest retailer, behind Amazon.com.

They were the former owners of Spiegel, Inc., (the parent company of Eddie Bauer and former owners of Spiegel catalog), which filed for bankruptcy on March 17, 2003. On May 25, 2005, Spiegel, Inc., emerged from bankruptcy renamed Eddie Bauer Holdings and is now owned primarily by Commerzbank. The Otto Group no long has any stake in the company.

Otto and his family own extensive real estate in Canada and in the United States, shopping centers in Germany and part of home-furnishings chain Crate & Barrel. Known as a committed environmentalist, his company has long touted environmentally safe products.

External links

• Forbes World’s Richest People
• Otto Group

Hills Department Store was a Canton, Massachusetts-based department store chain that existed from 1957 to 1999.

History

Beginning

Herbert H. Goldberger, the founder of Hills, sold the chain to SCOA Industries of Columbus, Ohio in 1964. He remained as president of Hills until 1981, when his son succeeded him. Goldberger was the vice president and director of SCOA when, in 1985, he led a management buyout of Hills.[1]

Hills went public in 1987, becoming the nation’s eighth-largest discount retailer. In November 1990, Goldberger’s son resigned, according to a Hills statement, and was replaced by Jack Brouillard. Goldberger’s resignation from his family business surprised some observers. He had been the chain’s president and CEO since 1981, and assumed the role of board chairman when his father died in 1987. Stephen Goldberger also introduced several other changes, including acceptance of credit cards, rollout of UPC scanning, a scheduled opening of distribution centers beginning in 1991, and the introduction of a new prototype in 1991.

Bankruptcy

Hills filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February 1991, and the number of stores declined, from 214 to 151. Hills emerged from bankruptcy in 1993. In 1998, Ames acquired Hills. After the Hills acquisition, Ames expanded from 301 to 456 stores and became the nation’s fourth-largest discount chain behind Wal-Mart, Kmart, and Target. Almost all Hills stores were renamed Ames by the end of 1999, even in markets where Ames and Hills overlapped.

External links

• Hills Fansite
• RetailFanClub

Multimedia

• Hills Commercial on You Tube

Personal bankruptcy is a procedure which, in certain jurisdictions, allows an individual to declare bankruptcy. In other jurisdictions, bankruptcies are reserved for corporations.

Personal bankruptcy (Canada)

The concept behind bankruptcy in Canada is that an individual assigns (surrender) everything they own to a trustee in bankruptcy in exchange for the elimination of their unsecured debts.

Exemptions

The rules for filing personal bankruptcy in each province and territory differ slightly. In some areas of Canada individuals may be permitted to keep (exempt) certain property. Common items for exemption include clothing, furniture, appliances, motor vehicles, medical and dental aids, a home, family heirlooms, and some insurance. In basic terms, any property the debtor might require to survive can be exempt. Personal Bankruptcy will eliminate most, if not all, of an individual’s debt, but it also impacts their future ability to obtain credit.

Costs

The cost of personal bankruptcy in Canada depends on the individual’s monthly family income, the size of the family, and their assets (such as RRSPs). An alternative to personal bankruptcy (in Canada) is a Consumer Proposal.

For bankrupcty in Scotland see Sequestration

There is no single law on bankruptcy in the United Kingdom with there being one system for England and Wales, one for Northern Ireland and one for Scotland.

Bankruptcy Law

There are two main personal insolvency regimes in the UK: one for England and Wales and another for Scotland. In England and Wales the majority of personal insolvencies are “bankruptcies”. The remainder are Individual Voluntary Arrangements or IVAs, which are arrangements between the debtor and his or her creditors for the payment of the debts on different terms: for example by instalments, or over a period of time. These two forms of insolvency have close equivalents in Scotland, where bankruptcies are known as sequestrations and the equivalent of IVAs are Protected Trust Deeds, or PTDs.

In bankruptcy, an indebted individual sees his debts forgiven in return for surrendering his assets (and sometimes a limited proportion of his income). He is allowed however to retain so-called “exempt” assets such as tools-of-trade and basic necessities and the generosity of this exemption level has received much attention in the USA where it varies among states, potentially affecting bankruptcy filing rates.

Bankruptcy is handled by a Trustee in bankruptcy who must be either the Official Receiver (a civil servant) or a licensed insolvency practitioner.

Following the introduction of the Enterprise Act 2002’s bankruptcy provisions in April 2004, an England & Wales bankruptcy will now normally last no longer than 12 months and may be less, if the Official Receiver files in Court a certificate that his investigations are complete. However, in cases where the bankrupt is considered particularly culpable for his or her insolvency, the bankruptcy can last for up to 15 years, although such orders are rare.

Why are bankruptcies soaring?

Some claim that the Enterprise Act threatens massively to increase the number of bankruptcy cases. Indeed, bankruptcies have risen considerably since the change. However they were already on an upward trend, and the rise is mirrored in Scotland, where there has been no legislation change.

A popular alternative explanation for the run-up in UK insolvencies is “destigmatisation” - people, it is said, are becoming less ashamed of going bankrupt. This is hard to prove, but some evidence is provided by figures showing that, increasingly, bankruptcy petitions are filed by debtors themselves, rather than their creditors.

The UK average household debt-to-income ratio has risen substantially in recent years, leading some to attribute the rise in insolvencies to excessive borrowing. However, the ratio of debt repayment costs to income has remained quite low, weakening this claim. Moreover, the rise in borrowing could itself be a reflection of a lower “fear” of bankruptcy - the destigmatisation effect again.

Insolvency figures

• (p) are provisional figures
• Sources: http://www.dtistats.net/sd/insolv200505/table2.htm http://www.dtistats.net/sd/insolv200602/table2.htm

External links

• British household indebtedness and financial stress: a household-level picture [PDF] Quarterly Bulletin, Personal Sector Articles, Winter 2004 (Report for Bank of England)
• Website of the Insolvency Service in the UK
• National Debtline Bankruptcy information document

In mathematical sociology, and especially game theory, the bankruptcy problem is a distribution problem involving the allocation of a given amount of a perfectly divisible good among a group of agents. The focus is on the case where the amount is insufficient to satisfy all their demands.

Problems of the bankruptcy type arise in many real life situations. The canonical example would be that of a bankrupt firm that is to be liquidated. Another example would be the division of an estate amongst several heirs, particularly when the estate cannot meet all the deceased’s commitments.

There are at least three simple methods for solving bankruptcy problems in practice, but each is deficient in one or more ways. The methods are:

1. The proportional rule: divide the estate proportionally to each agent’s claim.
2. The constrained equal-awards rule: divide the estate equally among the agents, ensuring that nobody gets more than their claim.
3. The constrained equal-losses rule: divide equally the difference between the aggregate claim and the estate, ensuring that no agent ends up with a negative transfer.

References

• Additive rules in bankruptcy problems and other related problems
• The Bankruptcy Problem: a Cooperative Bargaining Approach

Sun Television and Appliances was a speciality retailer of consumer electronics and home appliances. The company primarily operated stores in rural areas, where there was no other competition, in Ohio, Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky.

In late 1996, Indiana-based H.H. Gregg Appliances and Electronics had arranged to purchase Sun in an $87.5 million deal that would have paid $5 per share to the owners of Sun’s 17.5 million outstanding shares. However, H.H. Gregg withdrew from the deal over concerns regarding Sun’s financial condition.

The company ceased operations in 1998 after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September of that year, and after attempts to sell the company as a going concern failed. Some locations were purchased by H.H. Gregg Appliances and Electronics, and were reopened as H.H. Gregg locations.

References

External links

• Company profile (business.com)

MagCom was a manufacturer of cellular GSM handsets, located in Oslo, Norway.

The company’s single product was the tri-band MagCom cellular phone, on sale from April 2001, until the company declared bankruptcy on August 10, 2001.

In the months before the phone became available for purchase, most of the major IT-related media were ecstatic about the new phone, extensively hyping it. Some publications even claiming it would revolutionize the industry.
When the phone finally became available for sale, it had already been delayed 12 months. Due to this, expectations had grown even higher, and much was expected in terms of functionality and technology. The phone rapidly proved a great disappointment, as it had a price of approximately NOK 8000 (around $1200 USD), but came without support for GPRS, HSCSD or Bluetooth. It also had several serious software bugs, including one in the WAPreader which preventing users from reading WAP pages. In addition, the design was attractive, but regarded as clumsy by many users due to the need for a large antenna in a time when most cellular phones used an internal antenna.

Although several software updates were released, sales remained low, resulting in financial problems for the company. Even releasing information about an upcoming new and improved model failed to help the company secure additional financial support. This resulted in the production being stopped early in August 2001, and the company declaring bankruptcy just a week later. MagCom was later bought by the Norwegian company Q-Free.

Jaro was a charter airline based at Aurel Vlaicu International Airport in Bucharest, Romania, and operated from 1991 to 2001, when it was liquided by bankruptcy.

History

Jaro started operations in 1991 at Aurel Vlaicu International Airport, Bucharest second airport, with one Boeing 707. In the same year, Jaro International started services to JFK International Airport, being the first Romanian airline apart TAROM to fly over the Atlantic. In July 1997 the airline introduced weekly flights between Aurel Vlaicu International Airport-Montreal-Mirabel International Airport and Aurel Vlaicu International Airport-Toronto Pearson International Airport, where they stayed until 2000, when they renounced these routes because of the high competition of Tarom which was operating at Dorval and Pearson. In September 2001, the airline declared bankruptcy and made its last long haul flight and its last one from New York.

Services

In July 1997, Jaro was flying to 3 intercontinental destinations and 17 European destinations :

North America: Montreal, New York and Toronto

Europe: Bucharest, Düsseldorf, Vienna, Frankfurt, Girona, Hanover, London, Ostend (cargo only), Hamburg, Skopje, Palma de Mallorca, Berlin, Malta, Cologne, Southend (cargo only), Stockholm

Fleet

(at July 2000)

• 3 Boeing 707 (one cargo)
• 2 BAC 1-11
• 1 Yakovlev Yak-42

External links

• Photos on airliners.net

The Hon. Arthur J. Gonzalez is a United States Bankruptcy Court Judge for the Southern District of New York. Gonzalez received his undergraduate degree from Fordham University in 1969. Following graduation, he worked as a New York City public school teacher until 1982. After earning a law degree, also from Fordham, Gonzalez became an attorney for the Manhattan District Counsel Office of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). He left the IRS in 1988 and worked as a private lawyer for several firms. During this period, he earned a Master of Laws from New York University (NYU). In 1991, Gonzalez re-entered government to become an Assistant United States Trustee for the Southern District of New York. He was promoted in 1993 to become Trustee for New York, Connecticut, and Vermont. Judge Gonzalez was appointed Bankruptcy Judge in 1995.

Significant Cases

Gonzalez presided over the bankruptcy proceedings for WorldCom, the largest U.S. bankruptcy case, and Enron. Both cases resulted, at least in part, from egregious fraud by the companies prior to their filing for bankruptcy.

External links

• Official biographical profile
• Text of opinions