corporate bankruptcy law is about as perverse a situation as you can imagine. The original majority owners of a company are able to substantially shift assets to other companies they have an interest in, take large pay-outs etc. all within months of filing for the bankruptcy. In personal bankruptcy if you try shifting $10,000 dollars to your Mom 3 months before you file the court and creditors will slaughter you. The other trick that corporate bigwigs use is they stay on as management of a "reorganized" company following the bankruptcy and now get issued a ton of stock options. Then they go and borrow massive amounts of money (many times the same lenders in the bankruptcy provide new financing), issue stock etc., purchase other companies and then pump the stock market gurus to promote the stock of their company. Then they exercise their options and cash out. Many times shortly before filing for bankruptcy all over again. Sometimes they just go over to the company they transferred assets to and become the bigwigs there and do the same thing all over again. Corporate law has needed a major overhaul for many decades but it proves nearly impossible to get any meaningful reform.