Bankruptcy cases, in the United States, are filed in the United States Bankruptcy Courts with federal law governing procedures in these cases. The bankruptcy lists and the bankruptcy statistics are maintained by the courts and are available for public viewing.

A look at the biggest Chapter 11 filings in the history of the United States

Here are the top five bankruptcies in the history of the country.

• Lehman Brothers Holdings, the highly reputed Wall Street investment firm, was forced to file for bankruptcy protection in September 2008. This was the largest corporate filing in the history of the bankruptcy court as a result of which the company had to sell its North American investment banking and trading businesses as well as its New York City headquarters to the British bank, Barclays.

• In 2008, mortgage crisis as well as the recession forced Washington Mutual to file for bankruptcy. This led to a drop in the company’s stock which had assets worth nearly $328 billion at that time. Amidst fears of insolvency, nearly $16.7 billion was withdrawn by its customers, leading to it filing for bankruptcy protection.

• WorldCom, was once the second largest long-distance telecom in the United States. In 2002, it had to file for bankruptcy after it was caught in the middle of an accounting fraud scandal to the tune of $11 billion.

• General Motors Company, the automotive giant, which had assets worth about $90 billion, had to file for bankruptcy in 2009. The reputed car manufacturing company managed to jump back on its feet only after a bailout agreement with the US government.

• CIT, the New-York based financial institution, had to file for bankruptcy in 2009 after getting hit by the credit crisis. It had assets worth $80 billion dollar before it went bankrupt and had to be bailed out by the US government with Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds.

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