Lot of paper swamping business meeting causes difficult situation (8)
I believe the answer is:
quagmire
'difficult situation' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'lot of paper swamping business meeting' is the wordplay.
'lot of' means to remove the last letter (a lot of the word but not all of it).
'paper' becomes 'quires' (quire refers to a large amount of paper).
'swamping' indicates putting letters inside (inserted letters are covered up or swamped).
'business meeting' becomes 'agm' (abbreviation for annual general meeting).
'quires' with its last letter taken off is 'quire'.
'quire' enclosing 'agm' is 'QUAGMIRE'.
'causes' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for quagmire that I've seen before include "Bog - impasse" , "Bog or marsh" , "difficult situation" , "You can get bogged down in this" , "Morass" .)