>>but in the US when a company files BK, can't they just completely screw the shareholders, i.e. Six Flags?
They can't just randomnly screw you - there are rules about how they do it. I think those Canadians aren't above giving Joe Sixpack a hearty pounding he won't soon forget either. All to say, every case is different. There is a lot of leeway in a reorganization to lowball the value of the assets and hand 100% to creditors - that's not possible in a liquidation (in a liquidation, you'd steal it by chilling the bidding process so that a hand picked suitor picks it up). I would not be here if this was a reorganization and it would have nothing to do with Canada vs US. US bankruptcy can be very lucrative and shareholders come out handsomely more than most suspect - go look at chart during bankruptcy for CDC Software (7 cents to over 5 bucks in 6 months) or Vermillion (3 cents to 28 bucks in 3 months) to name two. On the flip side, I've seen a lot of cases where the value was there and it was snatched away - legal but via questionable ethics.
