European Restructuring Monitor (ERM)
Eurofound's ERM database on restructuring-related legal regulations provides information on regulations in the Member States of the European Union and Norway which are explicitly or implicitly linked to anticipating and managing change.
3, 10a, 11, 108-120, 129-135, 143-148, 151-156
According to the Act, a company at risk of insolvency, or a creditor of a company at risk of insolvency, may decide to file for reorganisation or for bankruptcy if the insolvency is considered imminent.
If there is a filing for reorganisation, the company has to submit a reorganisation plan to the court and the court will appoint a trustee who is in charge of inspecting the plan and giving an opinion to the court. If the opinion is positive, i.e. the company has reasonable probabilities of getting out of insolvency, the court authorises the start of restructuring no later than 15 days after the presentation of the plan. The company's assets are then protected from individual claims to allow for normal continuation of operations. During the restructuring, it is not allowed to carry out organisational changes at the debtor such as a merger, fusion or split off.
If the opinion is negative, the court orders the termination of the reorganisation proceedings. Creditors have a role too, as the reorganisation plan must be approved by the majority of each group of secured and unsecured creditors within 90 days of the start of the proceedings. If the creditors' committee rejects the plan, the reorganisation is converted into a bankruptcy procedure.
The reorganisation proceedings are terminated by order of the court on indication of the trustee. The reorganisation might have a positive outcome, i.e. the company is able to return to normal business operations, or a negative one where further bankruptcy procedures will follow. Once the reorganisation plan is completed a notice is published in the Official Business Journal.
On 1 January 2016, amendments to the Act No. 7/2005 (Article 10a) introduced a new tool that may mitigate the work of bankruptcy trustees. This is the public Insolvency Register (Register úpadcov) - an information system providing comprehensive information on all ongoing bankruptcies in the country.
The option to rescue the company through the restructuring procedure was applied in about 10% of recorded cases of insolvency in 2014-2016.
According to the experts, the number of companies using restructuring is long-term low. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of insolvency cases increased. Nevertheless, the number of companies using restructuring was low. In total 22 cases were recorded. It is assumed that after the COVID-19 crisis the number of restructuring will increase. According to available information, the restructuring took place mainly in commerce, the manufacturing industry and construction and rather in small than medium and large companies.
A list of companies that requested for re-organization or filed for bankruptcy is available at The public Insolvency Register, which is run by Ministry of Justice. In October 2023, the register recorded 3356 cases of bankruptcy, 57 re-organizations and 379 other proceedings, totaling 3792 ongoing cases.
The following chart shows the number of bankruptcy petitions for the last period (2021, 2022, 2023(Q3 data)) as well as number of approved re-organizations for each year.
Year 2021 2022 2023(until Q3) Bankruptcy 213 241 278 Re-reorganizations 23 26 11 Sources: Register úpadcov, INSOLVENCY REPORT za rok 2022
'Until mid-year of 2022, companies were safeguarded against bankruptcy by governmental protection measures, to mitigate effects of COVID pandemic, for example temporary protection against creditors, companies' financial reserves etc.. In 2nd half of 2022 effects of the pandemic, energetic crisis and war in Ukraine were on display in larger strength, therefore these companies would otherwise had gone bankrupt in 2020 already. In general, hospitality sector was mostly affected by the pandemic, however last year showed that companies in bankruptcy and reorganization were retail and wholesale companies. In 2022, Slovakia experienced the highest number of b. and r. since 2017.
Eurofound (2016), Slovakia: Rescue procedures in insolvency, Restructuring legislation database, Dublin, https://apps.eurofound.europa.eu/legislationdb/rescue-procedures-in-insolvency/slovakia
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