March 2021 Bankruptcy Filings Spike to Highest Level in 12 Months - Firebaugh & Andrews

New Consumer Bankruptcy Filings up 41% over February; Q1-21 Still Lagging

NEW YORK, April 05, 2021 — Epiq, a global technology-enabled services leader to the legal services industry and corporations, released its March 2021 bankruptcy filing statistics from its AACER bankruptcy information services business. March new filings spiked to 43,425 across all chapters. This was driven by 41,150 new non-commercial consumer filings, a 41% month over month increase and the largest single month of new filing activity since the pandemic started in March 2020. Commercial filings across all chapters also increased over February’s historic low with a total of 2,275 new filings, a 16% increase month over month.

“The decline in commercial chapter 11 filings is a direct reflection of both lenders and owners working with companies to protect their investments outside of a bankruptcy process,” said Deirdre O’Connor, senior managing director of corporate restructuring at Epiq.

“Bankruptcy filings in March saw large increases over February,” said Chris Kruse, senior vice president of Epiq AACER. “The vaccination roll-out and corresponding economic recovery is gaining momentum that will accelerate the return to pre-pandemic new bankruptcy filings levels. We approach the second quarter of 2021 cautiously anticipating the bankruptcy backlog that emerged during the pandemic may be peaking.”

There were 106,958 total new bankruptcy filings across all chapters for the first quarter of 2021, down from 177,245 in the same period in 2020. The two largest increases in March were in non-commercial consumer filings with 30,802 new Chapter 7 cases and 10,265 new Chapter 13 cases, increases of 9,939 and 1,945 over February 2021, respectively. Commercial Chapter 11 filings were down 9% over February with 384 new filings in March.