Recent years have witnessed a phenomenal upsurge in the number of corporate bankruptcies. The vulnerabilities which were lying dormant within contemporary bankruptcy regimes suddenly became apparent, causing concerns within the international corporate community. Consequently, researchers, practitioners and policy makers from all over the world got actively engaged in emphasizing the importance of efficient bankruptcy reforms for promoting rescue culture. The primary objective of an insolvency framework should be to provide quick, transparent and cost effective solutions for the resolution of financial distress and promotion of a synergetic environment conducive for the proliferation of healthy debt repayment practices, increased trust factors between creditors and debtors and a better survival rate for viable businesses. In this paper we present a qualitative review of various insolvency reforms introduced in many countries, between 2005 and 2013, for the efficient resolution of financial distress. We will also delve into a discussion of the prevalent practice of resolving distress through Court (formal procedure) or through out of Court (private workouts) settlements, the supporting related literature and the limitations involved in the process. Overall, our effort has been to summarize and synthesize empirical data and highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed insolvency reforms to provide better understanding of prevalent ways of resolving financial distress..