More Successful Bankruptcy Reforms During Crisis Episodes

I may have to take back what I said about crisis episodes not being optimal periods for reform of bankruptcy regimes. Leora Klapper, a senior economist at the World Bank, informs me in a short article on The Use of Bankruptcy in the Resolution of Corporate Distress that:

Importantly, systemic crisis periods are also periods of great opportunity for meaningful reform that would otherwise be stymied by powerful political interests.  Claessens et al. (2002) provide examples of such reforms from [the] East Asian financial crisis, which include the passage of improved bankruptcy laws in South Korea, Thailand and Malaysia, and the formation of specialized bankruptcy courts in Indonesia and Thailand.  Another example of a successful reform comes from Colombian bankruptcy reform introduced in the midst of a major financial crisis in late 1999. Gine and Love (2008) show that the reform significantly improved the efficiency of the bankruptcy process by streamlining reorganization proceedings.