Xu Jiayin, the owner of Evergrande Group, has been arrested for several days, and the enthusiasm of public attention is still undiminished. The Evergrande thunderstorm did have many points of concern, but filing for bankruptcy protection in a U.S. court is undoubtedly one of them.
When it comes to filing for bankruptcy protection in the United States, the first reaction of the vast majority of Chinese people must be indignant: an ordinary small business, step by step, develops and grows, what does it rely on? It relies on the state's policies, on the background of the times of reform and opening up, and on shady means such as deception. Nowadays, the business is not doing well and is about to go bankrupt, you Xu Jiayin is not thinking about how to repay the losses of banks, contractors and countless home buyers, but you ran to the United States with a cigarette, went to find Mei Dad to help, and wanted to turn the danger into a disaster, evade the trial of Chinese law, evade debt responsibility, isn't this a betrayal of the country? The thief's wolf heart is simply bad!
When Evergrande filed for bankruptcy in the United States, did it really want to use US law to evade its debt liability at home? To understand this issue, it is necessary to understand what the bankruptcy law of the United States is and what is the difference between the bankruptcy law of China and the bankruptcy law of China.
Evergrande's bankruptcy filing in New York is based on Chapter 15 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, which is a U.S. law for cross-border bankruptcy cases. The law provides that companies outside the U.S. can file for bankruptcy in U.S. courts through their proxy representatives, protect U.S. assets from creditors, and reorganize elsewhere. According to this US law, after Evergrande Group files for bankruptcy in the United States, it can avoid and prevent Evergrande's overseas creditors from filing lawsuits or seizing assets in the United States, so that Evergrande Group can free up time and energy to carry out asset restructuring and resume normal operations.
Some people say that Evergrande's trick is really clever, but no matter how clever it is, it cannot hide its suspicion of using the US bankruptcy law to try to evade debt responsibility in China. In this regard, we can only say: this is a bad statement, in business activities, any company has the right to seek the most favorable solution within the scope of the law, Evergrande Group filed for bankruptcy in the United States, can win a chance for itself to save itself, if the bankruptcy restructuring is successful, it is also expected to get out of the predicament and rejuvenate, why not.
At this point, many people will have a question: why does Evergrande Group have to go to the United States, can't it file for bankruptcy in China? Compared with the bankruptcy law of the United States, the bankruptcy law in China requires the debtor to liquidate all its assets, the discount of the discount, the auction of the auction, to pay off the debt, and the lack of provisions of the US bankruptcy law that allow the debtor to retain a certain amount of property and assets in bankruptcy proceedings in order to be able to come back to life, continue to operate or start over.
Under U.S. bankruptcy law, after filing an application in a U.S. court, Evergrande is required to provide detailed financial information and debt status so that the court can determine whether it is eligible to file for bankruptcy protection. As a result, the problem arises: Evergrande Group is a multinational corporation with operations at home and abroad, and if detailed financial information and debt status are provided to the US court, it will inevitably leak important information of relevant domestic banks and companies, and once the information is leaked, it is bound to cause these banks and companies to suffer significant losses to their business interests and national security.
Here, some people may ask: can't we not provide the relevant domestic banks and companies to the US court? Yes, of course, but doing so would result in a loss of China's judicial credibility. In the era of globally integrated commodity economy, corporate bankruptcy is common, and if we do not cooperate with the investigation of the US court, it will inevitably lead to the loss of trust in China's judiciary by multinational companies producing and operating in China. At a time when the private economy is in full swing and the country urgently needs foreign capital to revitalize the economy, the loss of trust in China's judiciary will surely hit the confidence of the private economy and foreign capital to invest in the Chinese market.
Therefore, we cannot fail to say that compared with the United States, China's bankruptcy law is too simple and cannot keep up with the development of the economic situation. And Evergrande's bankruptcy filing in New York should not be mistakenly regarded as a company using US law to maliciously evade domestic debt liability, which is too simple and rude. We cannot learn from the extreme nationalists and populists who associate corporate behavior with patriotism and moral judgment, which is too cruel and will chill them. What is urgently needed now is to supplement and improve the domestic bankruptcy law, so that companies and enterprises that are on the verge of bankruptcy can use China's law to obtain debt restructuring opportunities, which will greatly benefit China's economic development.