"The one great principle of the English law," wrote Charles Dickens in his 1853 novel "Bleak House," "is, to make business for itself." This cynical view of the legal system, still surprisingly influential, will probably triumph in the debate over whether the U.K. should introduce its own version of Chapter 11.

The European High Yield Association, the Institute of Directors, which represents small companies, and the opposition Conservative Party all argue for moves in the direction of the U.S. bankruptcy regime to rescue the many companies collapsing into insolvency. But they may have misjudged their audience and have almost certainly underestimated the durability of the patchwork system they seek to replace.

The EHYA, in support of its campaign for insolvency reform and a "new company rescue regime," lamented in March that "nearly all large restructurings in the U.K. are out-of-court, ad hoc negotiations, without a predictable legal framework or meaningful precedent to guide the process."

Most homegrown turnaround professionals or insolvency practitioners will tell you that one of the chief glories of the English system is that it is out-of-court, pragmatic and nonprescriptive. Apart from anything else, it means the legal fees are much lower.

As one senior restructuring professional says in private, "Chapter 11 is court-dependent, and so it's dominated by lawyers and very expensive. Is that what we ­really want?"

Not surprisingly, many insolvency and restructuring professionals are fighting to protect their turf. Under the U.K. regime, a company can shield itself from creditors only when it appoints an administrator. The administrator must be a licensed insolvency practitioner who assumes responsibility for managing the business. This is a crucial difference from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, where management continues to have operational control.

In the U.K., an administration can drag on for up to a year, during which insolvency professionals look for a buyer and try to settle the interests of creditors and debtors.

But empirical evidence suggests that the U.K.'s insolvency regime, a typically British patchwork of legislation based on the Insolvency Act of 1986 and significantly modified by the 2002 Enterprise Act, does work.

As London-based consultancy Centre for Economic and Business Research Ltd. and the World Bank found in a study published in September and sponsored by the Association of Business Recovery Professionals, insolvency practitioners spend much of their time helping companies to avoid insolvency in the first place. As retailer JJB Sports plc did in March, some companies seek to make use of the Company Voluntary Arrangement, a procedure that allows a binding agreement between a distressed business and its creditors about debt payments.

The CEBR-World Bank research also found that the U.K.'s "insolvency industry" held its own globally. In 2007, it ranked ninth out of 127 countries for the speed with which it dealt with troubled companies, and it ranked 10th out of 175 for its 85.2% recovery rate for creditors. The U.S., meanwhile, ranked 16th, with a 77% recovery rate.

Not surprisingly, some critics maintain that the U.K. insolvency regime is too creditor-friendly.

In the past six months, as the recession has deepened, many companies have been sold out of administration, often back to management or to distressed investors. Examples include substantial businesses such as tableware maker Waterford Wedgwood plc, large parts of which were sold to New York investor KPS Capital Partners LP by administrator Deloitte LLP in March, and tea and coffee retailer Whittard of Chelsea plc, which was sold in December by administrator Ernst & Young LLP to London's Epic Private Equity Ltd. That was a "prepack" deal, which is negotiated before the appointment of administrators and signed immediately afterward.

According to the Association of Business Recovery Professionals, prepacks offer one key advantage: in 92% of these deals, it finds, 100% of jobs are saved,

The U.K. system does not encourage fresh investment into a collapsed company and this is a critical failing. Unlike in the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, lenders providing finance after a company has gone into administration are not entitled to a "superpriority claim" ahead of other creditors: Existing secured creditors take priority.

This is a problem that must be addressed. But many Britons would agree with Dickens -- we shouldn't ask the lawyers for help.