Law on Old Bankruptcies, which was announced even before the campaign for early parliamentary elections in April this year and which was adopted on 31st of January 2014, still isn’t finished, although Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski promised that the whole process will be completed by end of the year.
Immediately after the Government session, on which was announced the beginning of the procedure for a special one-off Law on bankruptcy procedure, he said that all bankruptcy procedures will be completed in less than a year. Although more than a year has passed since his announcement, and almost 11 months since his reelection, the concerned have no information that something is happening.
– When the Law was passed, we submitted an application to the courts for our claims. Then it was announced that the whole process will be completed within a year, but we haven’t had any notification. For 20 years we are waiting to final solution of our problem, but probably nothing will turn out this time as well – says Todorka Gj., former worker of TP “Centro”, whose company is in bankruptcy about 20 years and is covered by the new Law on locking bankruptcy processes opened in accordance with the Law on forced settlement, bankruptcy and liquidation.
As announced, the law should include about 300 bankruptcies. It projects a sale of assets of bankrupt firms, but it also offers other opportunities for some of the workers in those companies to be compensated, and some even reemployed.
Representatives of the Ministry of Economy, which proposed the Law on locking bankruptcy processes opened in accordance with the Law on forced settlement, bankruptcy and liquidation, said that the main goal is determining the legal status of the property of the debtor, which was built before the opening of bankruptcy processes, which didn’t have an established status and weren’t registered in the Agency for Real Estate Cadastre (AREC).
– In accordance with the provisions of the Law which projects a procedure in which, in order to determine the legal status property, the liquidator submits a proposal to the non-contentious court (with supporting documents). The court submits a request to AREC, which prepares a geodetic report (onsite facility recording) on the concerned facilities and the study is submitted back to the court, which reaches a decision for determining the legal status. The decision is submitted to AREC for registration of real estate and for obtaining a deed – said representatives of the Ministry of Economy.
After the determination of the legal status, with appropriate proof of ownership under the name of the debtor, the public advertisement for the sale of the real estate (and other movable property of the debtor) through electronic auction, which is announced on the website of the Central Registry of the Republic of Macedonia.
