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In South Africa, the devastating effects of the COVID-19 plague forced several corporates to resort to business rescue proceedings to guarantee the continuance of their operations. However, the low success rates associated with the current South African business rescue regime are a thing of concern among policymakers. In this article, we conduct a systematic literature review highlighting the shortcomings of the current South African business rescue mechanism and recommendations that can be adopted to improve its success rates. The study then proposes a broad agenda for future research. We discover that even though the South African business rescue mechanism is an economically significant, promising framework that gives companies time and space to find solutions for their problems, it is associated with numerous shortcomings that lessen its success rates. Also, the study results indicate that the regime can be improved in more than a few dimensions to augment its success rates. Further, the review divulges that implementing the current South African business rescue framework has some uncharted areas that need to be investigated. As a recommendation, policymakers should improve the business rescue regime to increase its success rates.