Bankruptcy petition court statistics down

The number of individuals filing for bankruptcy has fallen as has the number of company winding up petitions for dissolving a company that cannot pay its debts, according to figures from the Ministry of Justice.

There were 13,004 individual bankruptcy petitions made by debtors (the person who owes the debt) in the second quarter of 2010 - a 21% decrease on the previous quarter of 16,383 and 19% down on the same quarter of 2009.

Individual bankruptcy petitions made by creditors (the person to whom the debt is owed) fell by less than 1% in quarter two 2010 to 4,494 from 4,510 the previous quarter. This was 9% less than the same quarter of 2009.

Company winding up petitions for dissolving a company that cannot pay its debts, made either by a shareholder, director, or creditor, fell to 2,635 – a decrease of 17% on the petitions in the same quarter of 2009 and a decrease of 5% on the previous quarter.

The statistics are issued by the Ministry of Justice and taken from the High Court and county courts of England and Wales during the second quarter of 2010.
This information is different to the quarterly statistics published by the Insolvency Service which shows the number of company winding-up orders and bankruptcy orders.