Chinese personal bankruptcy regulation: The Shenzhen experience

Although Chinese policymakers have enacted a new bankruptcy system in 2007, they did not cover individuals in the system. Recently, Chinese legislators have recognised the necessity of a personal bankruptcy system. Legislators expect a personal bankruptcy system can address unenforceable cases in the judicial system and promote entrepreneurship. Against this backdrop, Shenzhen personal bankruptcy regulation has been introduced. The regulation has provided several treatment to individual over‐indebtedness: bankruptcy, debt reorganization and compromise. By theoretically analyzing the institutional framework of the regulation, this paper considers that it can partly achieve legislative objectives.