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With the global financial crisis there's no surprise that a lot of companies went bankrupt. Some of the biggest American companies that went under (whether before or after the crisis) are described below.

The year 2009 could be registered as the one in which a large number of public companies went bankrupt. Up till now the record is held by the year 2001 when 263 companies had to file for bankruptcy. If to combine the results of 2001 and those registered in the current year then it would turn out that the average speed would be 20 companies filing for bankruptcy a month, which would also be about 5 companies a week. Taking into consideration the fact that there are five working days in a week, the average figure could also be one company each working day.

Currently the year 2009 did not manage to beat the record registered in 2001 in terms of the number of companies that went bankrupt. However, the current year has already broken all records in terms of assets of the firms searching for protection from bankruptcy. Such companies as General Motors, Chrysler and Thornburg Mortgage managed to get in the list of the top ten biggest bankruptcies in the history of the United States. GM bankruptcy was registered as the biggest industrial bankruptcy in the country. Up till now the leading bankruptcy is the one registered in 2001, when Enron went down, being the fifth largest company to file for bankruptcy in the United States.

General Motors is also one of the leaders in terms of employees, its staff being composed of 243,000 employees, who lost their jobs after the company went bankrupt. GM stands next to Kmart Corp that had nearly 10,000 workers went it went down in 2002. If to consider the last few months of 2007, the global financial crisis managed to bring down 5 out of 10 biggest bankruptcies in the United States. Moreover, the five giants account for over 80 percent of the companies listed in the top 10 in terms of asset size. All five companies that went bankrupt account a total of $1.2 trillion in assets, while the remaining five together account about $250 million.

General Motors is the fourth largest candidate for bankruptcy in the country, being listed next to such companies as Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual and WorldCom. The crisis also "helped" Lehman Brothers and WaMu to go down. The once one of the largest telecom brand WorldCom filed for bankruptcy in 2002. One of the last to file for bankruptcy was Chrysler, being registered as the seventh largest in the history of US. The fifth and sixth biggest bankruptcies in the country's history are those of energy company Enron, who went down in 2001 and finance company Conseco that filed for bankruptcy in 2002.

Other companies included in the list are: Thornburg Mortgage Inc, residential mortgage lender than ended up eighth in the list, Pacific Gas and Electric Company; electricity and natural gas company that was listed ninth; and Texaco, petroleum major that was listed the first from the bottom of the list. The current economic crisis was the one to affect Lehman, WaMu, GM, Chrysler and Thornburg; other companies went bankrupt in the late 80s or over the last ten years.

The first company to be affected by the global financial crisis was Lehman. It went bankrupt on September 15, 2008, having a debt of $613 million and its assets being worth $691 billion. Soon the company was followed by WaMu, the largest savings and loan holding company in the United States. WaMu went bankrupt on September 26, 2008 and its asset worth $327 million was instantly sold to J P Morgan Chase for just $1.9 billion.

Several months later the crisis reached the auto sector in which Chrysler went down on April 30, 2009, its assets being worth $39.3 billion. It was followed the very next day by Thornburg Mortgage that had assets worth $36.5 billion and the latest to file for bankruptcy was General Motors with assets worth $91 billion. The assets of WorldCom, which went down in July 2002 were worth $107 billion. In December 2001 Enron filed for bankruptcy with assets worth $63.4 billion. A year later Conseco followed the path of the upper mentioned companies with its assets worth $65.5 billion.

Here are the top ten biggest bankruptcies:

1. Lehman Brothers; 

2. Washington Mutual; 

3. WorldCom; 

4. General Motors; 

5. Enron; 

6. Conseco; 

7. Chrysler; 

8. Thornburg Mortgage; 

9. Pacific Gas and Electric Company;