Law no. 113/2020 regarding the approval of Emergency Ordinance (OUG) no. 88/2018 for the amendment and completion of some normative acts in the field of insolvency and other normative acts published in the Official Gazette (Part I) no. 600 of July 8, 2020.
A very important aspect referred to the limit-value – which represents the minimum amount of the claim, in order to be able to introduce the request to open insolvency proceedings.
Thus, according to the new provisions, the limit-value is estimated at 50,000 lei for both creditors and debtors, including for requests submitted by the liquidator appointed in the liquidation procedure provided by the Companies Law no. 31/1990, for receivables, other than the salary ones; for employees the limit-value is estimated at 6 average gross salaries per economy / employee.
We mention that according to the old provisions, the limit-value was estimated at 40.000 lei for both creditors and debtors, including for requests made by the liquidator appointed in the liquidation procedure, for receivables other than salary, and for employees the limit-value was estimated also at 6 average gross salaries per economy / employee.
In addition, the instrument of “payment convention” is introduced in the insolvency procedure, between the agreement between the debtor and the creditor regarding the settlement in one or more tranches of the obligations at other terms than the deadlines according to the contractual or legal provisions.
In order to take over the position of judicial administrator in an insolvency file, the interested insolvency practitioners will submit to the file an offer, to which they will attach the proof of the quality of insolvency practitioner and a copy of the professional insurance policy. In the offer, the interested insolvency practitioner will be able to show the availability of time and human resources, as well as the general or specific experience necessary to take over the file and the good administration of the case. If the debtor, respectively the creditor / creditors have not formulated proposals and there are no offers submitted to the file, the syndic judge will provisionally appoint, until the first meeting of creditors, an insolvency practitioner randomly selected from the National Union of Practitioners in Insolvency in Romania.
According to the Insolvency Law no. 85/2014, in order to fulfill its attributions, the judicial administrator will be able to appoint specialized persons such as lawyers, accounting experts, evaluators or other specialists. According to the new provisions contained in Law no. 113, “those persons who are in a contractual relationship likely to create a conflict of interest may not be designated, they must abstain or may be challenged.”
We remind you that, according to Article 75 of Law No. 85/2014, from the date of the opening of insolvency proceedings, all judicial, extrajudicial or enforcement actions are suspended in order to enforce the claims on the debtor’s assets
According to Law No 113/2020, judicial proceedings for determining the existence and/or amount of claims on the debtor arising after the date of the opening of proceedings are not suspended. Such actions may be submitted, during the observation and reorganization period, a request for payment, submitted with acknowledgment of receipt, to be examined by the insolvency administrator within 15 days of receipt, without these claims being entered in the debt table. An appeal may be lodged against the measure ordered by the judicial administrator.
The holder of a current, certain, liquid and due receivable that was recognized by the judicial administrator or on which he failed to rule within 15 days from the date of receipt of the request for payment or recognized by the syndic judge, in case in which the amount of the claim exceeds the threshold value, may request during the observation period the opening of the bankruptcy procedure of the debtor if these claims are not paid within 60 days from the date of taking the measure of the judicial administrator of admission or omission of pronouncing on the request for payment or the decision of the Courthouse.
In addition, the tax receivables ascertained by a contested tax administrative act and whose forced execution was not suspended by a final court decision will be admitted to the credit table and passed provisionally until the end of the appeal by the instance of administrative contentious.
If the debtor does not comply with the judicial reorganization plan or new debts are accumulated to the creditors in the insolvency proceedings, any of the creditors or the judicial administrator may at any time request the syndic judge to order the debtor to go bankrupt. The request is judged urgently and especially, within 30 days from its registration in the case file. The request will be rejected by the syndic judge in case the claim is not due, is paid or the debtor concludes a payment agreement with this creditor.
A reorganization procedure by continuing the activity or liquidation based on the plan will be closed, by sentence, based on a report of the judicial administrator which finds the fulfillment of all payment obligations assumed by the confirmed plan, as well as the payment of current receivables due, the date on which they become due and the taxes related to the possible reductions of receivables insofar as they are due.
Provided that a procedure starts as a reorganization but after that it goes bankrupt, it will be closed according to the provisions of art. 167 of the Insolvency Law.