Most Improved Country: Regulatory Frameworks

Reform to Azerbaijan’s insolvency framework has driven the country’s 27 rank increase on regulatory frameworks in InfraCompass.

World Bank’s Doing Business Report in 2017 found that Azerbaijan ranked 86th in resolving insolvency, with a strength of insolvency framework of 13.5.32 Azerbaijan also ranked 65th in the Ease of Doing Business Index out of 190 countries.^[1]

In 2018, Azerbaijan made resolving insolvency easier by making insolvency proceedings more accessible for creditors and granting them greater participation in the proceedings, improving provisions on the treatment of contracts during insolvency and introducing the possibility to obtain post-commencement financing.

Building on this, in 2019, Azerbaijan made resolving insolvency easier by providing for the avoidance of preferential transactions (i.e. transfers or payments made to unsecured creditors that result in a creditor receiving a preference over the remaining unsecured creditors at a time when the debtor was insolvent).

As a result of the above measures, World Bank’s 2020 Doing Business Report Azerbaijan ranked 47th in resolving insolvency, with a strength of insolvency framework of 14.5. The 39 place jump in ranking drove the overall improvement in Azerbaijan’s Ease of Doing Business Index from 65th in 2017 to 34 in 2020.^[2]