Insolvency Simulator
Which legal system?
The same company, the same eighteen problems, two completely different sets of consequences. This is not a translation — pick one and the deadlines, the duties, the procedures and what happens to you personally all change.
A German edition covering §§ 15a, 17 and 19 InsO — the only one of the three with a criminal deadline — is at /de/insolvenz.
How to play
- Choose a legal system — England and Wales, or the United States. Everything downstream changes.
- Work through fifteen cases: each has its own opening position, its own length and its own brief.
- Decide one situation per quarter, then close the quarter and read the accounts.
- Watch the cover figure: it shows what share of the debts already due you could actually pay.
- Once insolvent, choose a measure — none of them spends a deadline, because neither system sets one; they build a defence instead.
Insolvency Simulator is a business simulation on DropPlay in which you run a company through years of distress and watch real insolvency law apply to your own balance sheet. You pick a legal system first, because this is not one game translated twice: England and Wales sets no deadline at all but judges a director afterwards under s. 214 Insolvency Act 1986 and can ban them from directing for two to fifteen years, while the United States lets you keep operating almost indefinitely and then takes your house through the payroll tax instead — 26 U.S.C. § 6672 assesses 100% of the withheld amount against you personally, and no bankruptcy ever discharges it. Fifteen cases per jurisdiction, 8 to 20 quarters each, five legal forms, five sectors carrying real published data, and eighteen business situations that each cite the provision they turn on.
Tips & strategy
- Profit is no defence. Both systems ask whether debts falling due can be paid, and a profitable quarter can still leave you unable to pay them.
- In England the exposure grows with inaction, not with time: s. 214(3) protects a director who took every step, so a quarter with nothing done is a quarter with nothing to show the judge.
- In America almost nothing punishes trading on — there is no filing duty, no wrongful trading, and no deepening-insolvency tort in Delaware after Trenwick. The payroll deposit is the exception, and it is the one that never goes away.
- Never sign the personal guarantee if you can avoid it. It is why so many limited-company failures end as personal bankruptcies, and two of the fifteen cases are lost by signing it.
- An agreed standstill beats a payment: it removes the due date, and the due date is what the test turns on.
History & background
Only about 5% of American bankruptcy filings are commercial — of 51,772 filings in May 2026, just 2,812 were business cases — because so much business failure surfaces as a personal bankruptcy instead. In England and Wales one company in 196 on the register entered insolvency in the year to May 2026, a rate of 50.9 per 10,000, with construction accounting for 17% of the caseload. Every statutory citation in the game was checked against legislation.gov.uk and the Legal Information Institute; the sector data comes from the Insolvency Service and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
FAQ
Which jurisdictions does this game cover?
Three, in two editions. This page offers England and Wales and the United States; a German edition covering §§ 15a, 17 and 19 InsO is at /de/insolvenz. They are separate rule sets rather than translations, because the answer to "what happens to me personally" is genuinely different in each.
What is wrongful trading?
Under s. 214 Insolvency Act 1986 a liquidator can ask the court to make a director contribute to the company's assets if, at some point before the winding up, they knew or ought to have concluded that there was no reasonable prospect of avoiding insolvent liquidation. Subsection (3) is the defence: the court must not make the order if the director then took every step to minimise the loss to creditors. There is no deadline anywhere in it.
Can I be banned from being a director?
In England, yes. Once a court finds that your conduct as a director of an insolvent company makes you unfit, s. 6 CDDA 1986 says it must disqualify you for between 2 and 15 years — barring you from directing or managing any company without the court's permission. American law has no general equivalent.
What is the trust fund recovery penalty?
26 U.S.C. § 6672 imposes a penalty equal to the total amount of any tax a person was required to collect and pay over and willfully failed to pay — in practice, withheld payroll tax. It is assessed personally, "willful" only means you knew it was due and paid someone else instead, and § 523(a)(1)(A) excepts it from discharge. Germany discharges comparable debts in three years and England in one; this one is permanent.
How long does bankruptcy last for an individual?
In England, one year: s. 279(1) Insolvency Act 1986 discharges a bankrupt automatically at the end of a year from when the bankruptcy commences. In Germany the equivalent period is three years under § 287(2) InsO. In the United States a discharge comes with the case for an individual — and a corporation gets none at all, because § 727(a)(1) grants one only to individuals.
Do my own figures stay private?
Yes. The "your own figures" mode is processed entirely in the browser. Nothing is transmitted to a server, stored, or analysed.
Is this legal advice?
No. It explains rules and cites the provision behind each decision, but it does not assess any case. Much of what actually reaches an American owner personally — wage liability, veil piercing, partnership dissociation — is state law and varies by state. Anyone genuinely close to insolvency should talk to an insolvency practitioner or a bankruptcy attorney.