Comparative Assessment Study of the Current Insolvency Status in Romania and World-wide.

Between March and June 2002, an international research team established by CASE and comprising Ewa Balcerowicz (CASE, Warsaw), Gabor Hunya (WIIW, Vienna), Miklos Szanyi (Institute of Economics, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest), Eytan Sheshinski (The Hebrew University, Jerusalem) worked for the Romanian government and strictly speaking, the Romanian Ministry of Justice. In co-operation and under the supervision of IRZ - the German Foundation for International Legal Co-operation (Deutsche Stiftung für Internationale Rechtliche Zusammenarbeit e.V.) the CASE team worked within the framework of a project financed by the World Bank and entitled: Comparative Assessment Study of the Current Insolvency Status in Romania and World-wide. The aim of this project was to draw up an assessment of the insolvency law and its enforcement in Romania and to suggest relevant changes to this law, related laws and insolvency institutions. In pursuing its task, the team's approach followed World Bank guidelines for insolvency assessments as reflected in its Consultation Draft on Principles and Guidelines for Effective Insolvency Systems. CASE's team, headed by Ewa Balcerowicz prepared 5 chapters of the final report presented to the Romanian Ministry of Justice. These dealt with the following issues:

1. The responses of the Romanian government to the transformation shocks that seriously affected Romania's economy in the 1990s and in the years 2000-2002;
2. Commercial and financial issues (including a category on debtor-creditor rights) of the current insolvency law;
3. Systemic crisis and state-owned enterprise insolvency in Romania and the government's approach to restructuring and the insolvency of this sector in the transition period;
4. Bank and insurance company insolvency;
5. Comparative analysis of legal and institutional insolvency systems in other transition economies and developed market economies.

In addition, the CASE team provided its comments on the other chapters of the final report (which presented a general assessment of the insolvency law and the institutional framework) and also a Plan of Action (which proposed changes necessary in both the insolvency law and related laws and the institutional insolvency framework).

Results of the project were published in 2002 in CASE Network Studies and Analyses No. 254 (see below: Publications). The research findings also appeared in 2004 in a book edited by Jens Lowitzsch entitled Das Insolvenzrecht Mittel- und Osteuropa.