Batman: Corporate Bankruptcy?

It is expensive to be Batman, and, high expenses can lead to bankruptcy.

In The Dark Knight Rises, bad investments lead to the bankruptcy of, well, it is not clear.

Is it Wayne Industries?  Or Bruce Wayne personally? It comes up at a board meeting, which makes it look like corporate bankruptcy.  But, later on, Bruce says they let him keep the house.  Which would be personal.  Unless, the house were titled in the name of the corporation.

Many bankruptcy issues are raised by this minimal fact scenario.  But, lots of people, now including me, have seen the flick. Like Mark Hughes and many other reviewers,  I loved the latest Batman movie.

So, one of the bad guys gets Bruce Wayne’s thumbprint and accesses his (or is it the corporation’s?) trading accounts, makes deliberately bad bets, and loses most of the money.

Let’s assume it is the corporate accounts, as the stock value drops and he resigns before being booted off the board.

Beats me how speculating in investments would be a legitimate corporate purpose for

ayne Industries,

but, I don’t recall any explanation of everything the corporation does, so, we’ll give it a pass.

In the movie, no bankruptcy case is filed by the corporation.  If so, there would have been parts for some bankruptcy lawyers.  I know, I know, as my younger daughter said about my work:  “Boring!!!”

So, Bruce is off the board, the corp keeps operating, no bankruptcy court oversight, no first day orders, no duty to operate as a trustee for the benefit of the creditors.  All are hallmarks of big corporate Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Now, Morgan Freeman’s character says Applied Sciences, the entity that produced all the cool gadgets, was “off the books.”

That is not a good thing in the bankruptcy world.  If the bucks for the prototype weapons et. al. came from Wayne Industries, for nothing, that is, Applied did not pay for them, then a bankruptcy trustee of Wayne Industries could recover those assets for the benefit of the creditors of Wayne Industries.

Probably, no use parsing fine points like these in a blog post.  But I can expound further if you want to email me.

I think it is safe to assume that the cars and house were owned by Bruce Wayne personally.

And, bad guys being what they are, which is, bad, let’s assume they looted not only Wayne Industries, but also Bruce Wayne’s, accounts.

Next post, a look at Bruce Wayne in personal bankruptcy.

Images from Dreamstime

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