Under the Polish Restructuring Law, in principle an arrangement covers all claims against the debtor except for those expressly identified in the law as outside the arrangement. But sometimes it is not necessary to reach an agreement on all the debtor’s obligations in order to carry out an effective restructuring. This happens when the debtor only has difficulty servicing selected obligations that are otherwise essential to operation of its business. For such situations, parliament introduced the institution of a partial arrangement.
It is worthwhile for creditors to take part in litigation even if the outcome could go against them. This way, they can help prevent the court from issuing rulings sought by colluding debtors and their allies.
Dishonest debtors are increasingly daring to use court proceedings to fictitiously dispose of funds to pay their debts. They believe that if they obtain a final judgment that orders them, for example, to pay an amount to a third party, the creditor will not be able to contest the payment. But is the creditor completely defenceless? With this article, we are kicking off a series on what to pay attention to and how to react when a debtor initiates court proceedings that may render the debtor insolvent.
The deepening crisis of debtor honesty means that today, more than ever, creditors face the risk that debtors will not only fail to pay their debts voluntarily, but will hinder enforcement by transferring assets to third parties. In such situations, a fraudulent transfer claim against the third party (sometimes called a “Pauline action”), known and applied in legal systems of many countries around the world, comes to the creditor’s rescue.
Fraudulent transfer claim against a third party: how it works
Often, debtors’ shares in companies are subject to seizure in security or enforcement proceedings. But the debtor does not lose its status as a shareholder in the company after the shares are seized, and the creditor still remains a third party with respect to the company. Thus the debtor may continue to exercise the corporate rights attached to the seized shares, making it difficult for the creditor to satisfy its rights.
In its judgment of 10 February 2021 (case no. I CSKP 33/21), the Supreme Court of Poland considered a cassation appeal by a claimant seeking to prove that it was wronged as a creditor in a fraudulent transfer claim against a third party (governed by Art. 527 and following of the Civil Code). The Supreme Court raised important issues in this debatable decision from the point of view of the safety of participants in commerce, including creditors. Among other things, the court pointed out that the assessment of whether a creditor was harmed within the meaning of Art.
Thanksto bankruptcy proceedings creditors do not have to fight with each other over the debtor's assets in order to carry out individual enforcements.The order of satisfaction of claimsprescribed by law means that the claims of the weakest creditors, i.e. employees, are paid first.Subsequently, the claims of contractors and the tax office are repaid.Only at the end are the claims of the shareholders paid off.
Business email compromise, or BEC is a type of cyber-facilitated fraud where fraudsters compromise IT networks, intercept business communications, and by using different manipulation techniques, trick employees into making wire transfers to fraudulent bank accounts. The fraud itself is not a new creature. It is an old trick, merely conducted with the use of modern technologies.
So-called simplified restructuring proceeding has been introduced into Polish law in June 2020. It is quite quick, deformalized and highly beneficial to firms facing bankruptcy. It provides protection against creditor enforcement and termination of contracts, as well as an opportunity to reduce debt (if agreed to by creditors).