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Scary Stories And The Limited Liability Polluter In Chapter 11 Polluter In Chapter 11, Anne M. Lawton, Lynda J. Oswald

Washington and Lee Law Review

Legal commentators, policy-makers, and the media argue that the current structures of environmental, bankruptcy, and corporate law permit firms to strategically use bankruptcy to inappropriately displace hundreds of millions of dollars of environmental liability onto taxpayers. However, the proposed solution to this supposed problem-reforming bankruptcy, environmental, and/or corporate law-is draconian, and may cause dramatic and unintended consequences. Moreover, these demands for reform are occurring in a complete absence of data about whether and to what extent inappropriate strategic use of bankruptcy in this manner actually occurs. We conducted an empirical analysis of Chapter 11 bankruptcies filed in 2004 and closed …