IANAL and I don't claim to understand any of this well, but I would naively assume that if Company A collected data under a binding legal agreement that they can only use it for X, then they go bankrupt, that shouldn't give Company B the ability to buy the data as a "liquidation asset" then do anything they feel like with it. Shouldn't the binding restrictions "move" with the data?
This depends on how the company is liquidated/sold. In the cases I mentioned of sale or acquisition, often the corporate entity remains in existence through the transition, so the effect is that nothing changes wrt the binding legal agreement, but a large group of new people gain access to the data. Also while legal agreements are binding, they can usually be changed, it takes some careful planning to prevent a contract from being changeable by the new owner of the contract. Think about the question of who owns the collected data in the first place. If the company owns it, and the investors own the company, the company might have a tough time getting investors to agree to waive their right to sell what they consider to be a valuable asset in the case of bankruptcy. If the company doesn't ask the investors, or can't get them to agree, then whatever they do has grounds for future legal challenge. It's all around better to delete any such data before anything changes hands.
