Bankruptcy, a forgotten option in pandemic time...

In Albania businesses are insufficiently aware which chances bankruptcy procedures can provide, as they are confused between bankruptcy/foreclosure itself and bankruptcy proceedings trying to protect business from foreclosure meanwhile. For this reason, a team of experts has written a project, financed by Western Balkans Alumni Association to raise general awareness on bankruptcy proceedings not focused only on the legal framework in Albania but based on practices with the best international procedures of bankruptcy.

The project aims to be implemented by obtaining concrete information, not only on theoretical grounds but also on bankruptcy proceedings conducted in the Republic of Albania. Each information obtained will be subject to analysis in the future from professionals and practitioners in bankruptcy proceedings.

The objectives:

• General awareness on bankruptcy proceedings based on practical cases, domestic precedents, and international practice.
• Obtaining information’s on the problems that face interested sides directly in the procedures of bankruptcy, debtors, or creditors. Through this information is intended to gather knowledge from directly affected parties, mainly from subjects that have passed bankruptcy proceedings.
• Obtaining information on the level of professionalism that have main subjects in procedures of bankruptcy, and here we don`t talk about the main parties affected by bankruptcy proceedings debtor / creditor but for, bankruptcy court, administrator bankruptcy, lawyer, consultant law on the procedure of bankruptcy.
• Identification of the main problems on the procedures of bankruptcy in Albania, as basic information for further studies to find their solutions.
• Evidence of implementation of recommendations by the EU as of belonging procedures of bankruptcy, in the framework of approximation of Albanian legislation with the EU.
• Summary of information, comments through a comparative, comprehensive analysis, for the identification of the main problems on bankruptcy proceedings in Albania

The results achieved:

1) Identification of the main problems on the procedures of bankruptcy in Albania, as basic information for further studies to find their solutions: Concluding on bankruptcy issues and specifically why debtors do not seek and apply to the Courts to take advantage of the facilities provided by the law "on bankruptcy", we can say that the two main reasons are non-sanctioning of debtors (responsible persons) and lack of interest from the two most powerful creditors in the Albanian economy.

2) The two main creditors in the Albanian economy are commercial banks and the tax administration. Banks as explained above prefer to collect their liabilities through enforcement thus avoiding bankruptcy proceedings through litigation. The tax administration according to law no. 9920 "On tax procedures in the Republic of Albania" has the attributes of execution because it has the right to seize and confiscate the assets of debtors. For this reason, even the tax administration does not seem to have an interest in opening bankruptcy proceedings.

3) Summary of information, comments through a comparative, comprehensive analysis

4) expert knowledge involved in the project and evaluated conference results with highly educated participants are compiled in a project report

5) with the help of the project, a first Albanian bankruptcy network is to be found and set up to find joint solutions to existing problems in future projects

The results were reached through:

• a conference of highly educated participants, an exchange of knowledge and opinions takes place. (5 Participants)
• Interdisciplinary knowledge of tax laws, but also accounting, balancing, business administrations and economics
• A final report with a comparison between the scientific research and the results of the conference.
• Scientific Research in the insolvency decisions, Differences between law no. 8901/2002 and the new law no. 110/2016 "On Bankruptcy", Judicial Practice, Decisions by the Council of the Ministers.

You can find us online on the project website, that we have created lexetfiscus.com (still in progress).

The target groups for this project are the subjects that have passed bankruptcy proceedings, debtor/ creditor, bankruptcy court, bankruptcy administrators, lawyer, consultant law on the procedure of bankruptcy.

We collaborated with these Partners: University of Tirana, National Bankruptcy Agency, National Business Centre, Bankruptcy Administrators.

Vjoela Allkanjari