Balance of Interests: Basic Principles and Institutional Design for the Disposal of Data Assets in Corporate Reorganization

Judicial Interpretation (II) of the Enterprise Bankruptcy Law lays the legal foundation for treating corporate data assets as debtor property within bankruptcy reorganization proceedings. However, because the disposal of such assets implicates the protection of data subjects' interests and public interests, it gives rise to tensions with traditional principles of bankruptcy law. Accordingly, the disposal of corporate data assets must balance the maximization of creditors' interests, the realization of the debtor enterprise's reorganization objectives, and the protection of data subjects' interests as well as public interests. Institutional design should take the balancing of multiple stakeholders' interests as its fundamental principle and establish a clear hierarchy of interests so as to clarify the priority order governing the disposal of corporate data assets. Meanwhile, it is necessary to establish rules for the classification and identification of data assets, recalibrate individual consent requirements in data asset disposal, strengthen bankruptcy administrators' obligations regarding data security management, reconstruct voting mechanisms for data asset disposal, and develop diversified models for data asset disposition. These measures aim to maximize the value of corporate data asset disposal on the premise of protecting the interests of multiple stakeholders, thereby mitigating conflicts of interest and normative value tensions arising from the disposal of corporate data assets in bankruptcy reorganization proceedings.