Bankruptcy: What is left for the creditors? A Belgian exploratory study

Abstract It is sometimes alleged that in cases of bankruptcy, there is often not much left for the creditors, especially for the ordinary unsecured creditors. This article examines, in an exploratory way, what the different classes of creditors, depending on their priority position, recover in cases of bankruptcy in Belgium, by investigating a sample of 286 bankruptcy files from the Commercial Court of Ghent (Belgium's second largest city). This article also explores what impact some existing proposals to improve the position of ordinary unsecured creditors in the event of bankruptcy would have had on the bankruptcy cases studied.