Insolvency Law Reform

About RETA 5795

The RETA was primarily intended to facilitate the development of legal frameworks for the recovery and restructuring of corporate debt in eleven Asian countries – Hong Kong, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Taipei,China, and Thailand. These economies (i) had either adopted or were in the process of adopting bankruptcy law reforms or (ii) had more developed or effective bankruptcy law regimes.

The RETA was divided into two phases. For the first phase, a work guide was prepared by ADB's international experts. Following the work guide, individual studies on the corporate insolvency laws and practices of eleven Asian countries were prepared.

Thereafter, a first comparative report [ PDF: 376kb | 65 pages ] was prepared which, along with the individual studies, was reviewed and discussed at the initial symposium held in ADB headquarters at Manila on 25-26 January 1999.

The second phase concentrated on a more detailed examination of issues in Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand. This phase was designed to take account of significant insolvency laws and related developments in these economies since the initial symposium.

Consequently, a second comparative report [ PDF: 215kb | 36 pages ] was prepared and discussed at the second symposium in Manila on 25-27 October 1999. The symposium was held jointly for RETA 5795 and RETA 5773 for Secured Transactions Law Reform [ PDF: 320kb | 9 pages ] and was a unique opportunity for a significant discussion of issues arising from the intersection of corporate debt financing, secured transaction financing, and corporate insolvency.

ADB published reports summarizing the results of the RETA.