Until the end of 2021, information on bankruptcy proceedings had to be sought from a variety of sources – in practice, knowledge of such proceedings was most often obtained from an extract from the KRS of the entity in question. For more than six months now, the National Debtor Register has been in place, which should contain comprehensive information in this respect.
European unification
The obligation for EU member states to set up a national information system was already provided for in 2015 by Regulation (EU) 2015/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council. Since then, work has been underway to set up a dedicated register for insolvency proceedings in Poland – this finally took place on December 1, 2021, and the register’s functionality extends far beyond insolvency proceedings alone.
General content of the National Debtors’ Register
In addition, the National Debtors’ Register contains information on the partners of trading companies liable for the company’s debts with all their assets, if, among other things, the companies have been declared bankrupt or the bankruptcy petition has been rejected due to the insufficiency of the companies’ assets.
Perhaps surprisingly, the National Debtors Register also includes maintenance debtors, i.e. people who have been in arrears with their alimony payments for more than three months.
The National Debt Register Act contains a long list of data included in this system. To say the least, it’s not just the details of the entities listed – the range of information is much broader, so that at least basic information on an entity’s behavior or status can be easily obtained.
Importance of the National Debtors’ Register for insolvency proceedings
In addition to the obvious facilitation represented by the possibility of knowing in a relatively simple way the situation of an entity involved in insolvency proceedings, the law on the National Debtors’ Register has also introduced other significant changes.
The most important of these is the requirement to submit all petitions and letters in bankruptcy proceedings (as well as in connection with the declaration of bankruptcy) via an ICT system – this means that all letters (including the bankruptcy petition) would, as a rule, have to be sent to the court not in paper form, but entered into the online system (https://prs.ms.gov.pl/krz). Note: this change does not apply to bankruptcy proceedings against natural persons who are not entrepreneurs!
Is the computerization of procedures a practical idea? Early experience suggests that it is, especially for non-professional lawyers who would like to file for bankruptcy on their own. The system guides you through the successive stages of drafting the application, one by one, so that the likelihood of making a mistake or omitting to attach certain documents is significantly reduced.
Panuje powszechne przekonanie, że złożenie wniosku o upadłość spółki z o.o. i ogłoszenie jej upadłości przez sąd pozwala zarządowi spółki spać spokojnie. Taki pogląd wynika ze zbyt dużego skupienia się na treści art. 299 KSH, bez właściwej analizy przepisów prawa upadłościowego. W rzeczywistości jednak, nawet w przypadku ogłoszenia upadłości spółki, majątek członków zarządu może nie być chroniony. Dlaczego tak się dzieje?
Treść art. 299 KSH jest powszechnie znana wśród członków zarządu spółek z o.o., jednak nie jest to jedyna sankcja za niezgłoszenie wniosku o upadłość spółki we właściwym terminie. Okazuje się, że poza wierzycielami spółki, (nie)zgłoszeniem wniosku o upadłość może być zainteresowany także prokurator.
