39
Journal
BANKRUPTCIES
CONTINUE
DOWNWARD
TREND
Epiq, an Atlanta-based provider of
intelligence to the legal services industry, has
released its January 2021 bankruptcy filing
statistics from its AACER subsidiary which
found that filings declined by 6.4% last month
representing 26,194 filings of all types, down
from the 27,957 seen in December, and the
29,328 seen in November.
Comparing data year over year from January
2021 to January 2022, bankruptcies fell by
16.5%, declining from 866,811 open cases in
2021 to 724,070 cases in 2022.
Breaking the data down, Chapter 13
individual bankruptcies rose by 3.4% in January
after two months of declines. January saw
10,336 new filings—this number is now down
from December when 9,996 new filings were
recorded. Year-over-year Chapter 13 filings
were up 13.2%.
Chapter 7 individual bankruptcies were
down in January with 14,304 new filings over
16,235 seen in December, a 11.9% decrease.
However, Chapter 11 commercial filings
saw 222 new filings, a decrease of 53.7% over
December when 310 filings were recorded.
It should be noted that an outlier occurred
in December which skewed the results—one
bankruptcy filing for Nordic Aviation Capital
resulted in 112 individually filed cases, which
explains the sharp uptick seen that month.
"January 2022 new filings continue to be
well below pre-pandemic levels," said Chris
Kruse, SVP of Epiq Bankruptcy Technology.
"We are closely watching the Chapter 13
individual filings as this month reversed the
prior three-month trend with a modest uptick
in activity."
