Insolvency

A credit officer’s blackest fear.

This could mean many things including balancesheet insolvency and cashflow insolvency.

Broadly, it means you do not have sufficient assets to meet your liabilities, and you are no longer a viable business. Your creditors are entitled to apply to the court for the appointment of a receiver who will liquidate your assets, determine your liabilities, and distribute the proceeds of that liquidation to your creditors pro rata. After that, the game is up and you no longer exist.

There are all sorts of special regimes and intermediate statuses in different jurisdictions (such as America's famous chapter 11 protection - designed to help a struggling company reorganise itself and get out of insolvency without going to the wall - and banks and financial institutions generally will be subject to bank resolution and recovery regimes which make the winding up process a little bit more complicated.

More about Insolvency

• The two two varieties of insolvency: cashflow insolvency and balance sheet insolvency
• ISDA’s delightful Bankruptcy definition — the gold standard of its kind.
• BRRD
• Netting
• CRD IV
• Credit risk