July was the hottest month for bankruptcy filings since the number of filings cooled off after new bankruptcy laws took effect nearly three years ago, new data show.

After a five-year slump, bankruptcy filings are once again on the rise, according to a company that runs a bankruptcy database.

Jupiter eSources LLC, which operates Automated Access to Court Electronic Records, or AACER, reported 186,788 bankruptcy filings through the first three months of 2007, up around 70% from last year.

Further Increase Expected In 2008

Chapter 11 filings jumped by nearly 25% in 2007,hitting the highest levels since Congress enacted laws in 2005 designed in part to discourage bankruptcy filings.

Those filings, which mostly involve business restructurings, rose to 6,236, up from 5,010 in 2006, according to data compiled by Oklahoma-based Automated Access to Court Electronic Records. AACER is a private company that tracks bankruptcy statistics.

US commercial bankruptcy filings jumped 56% in April from a year earlier, court records show.

Business bankruptcy filings rose to 5,173, while total bankruptcy filings, including those by individuals, were up by 37% to 93,096.

The figures were compiled from US court records by data provider AACER.

Tropicana Entertainment, which owns casinos in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, has become the latest firm to file for bankruptcy protection.

Known as Chapter 11, it allows a company time to reorganise and devise a plan to keep its businesses alive and pay creditors over time.

"This is the first step in making things better," Tropicana's president, Scott C Butera, told the Associated Press news agency.

Bankruptcies have risen as the US economy has been hit by a slowdown in the housing market and turmoil in financial markets.

The U.S. bankruptcy filing figures through June 30, 2008, have become available courtesy of Automated Access to Court Electronic Records (AACER). For June, the bankruptcy rate was 4,275 new filings per day. After a large increase in February and again in March when the daily filing rate hit 4,303, the rate has stayed fairly constant throughout April (4,236 filings/day), May (4,268 filings/day), and now June.