Bankruptcy court
In Germany, an insolvency court is responsible for conducting insolvency proceedings - both regular bankruptcy for companies , self-employed and freelancers , and consumer bankruptcy for natural persons . The bankruptcy court decides on the insolvency application, appoints an insolvency administrator and examines applications for the discharge of residual debt in consumer insolvency proceedings .
Regulation of responsibilities
Responsibility is regulated by Section 3 of the Insolvency Code (InsO). Accordingly, the local court in the municipality in which the debtor has his general place of jurisdiction is always responsible. There is an exception if the general place of jurisdiction is not the focus of the debtor's economic activities. In this case, the bankruptcy court in whose district this place falls is responsible. According to Section 2 (2) of the Insolvency Code, the federal states can determine additional or different local courts to speed up the insolvency proceedings. The districts also have the option of specifying different bankruptcy courts. In practice, this means that, as a rule, only the local courts are insolvency courts where a regional court is located.
Duties of the bankruptcy court
The tasks of the bankruptcy court include all decisions that go along with the bankruptcy proceedings. The bankruptcy court
- examines the application for bankruptcy and approves or rejects it by opening insolvency proceedings,
- takes provisional measures in accordance with Section 21 InsO (e.g. appointment of a provisional insolvency administrator) until the decision on the insolvency application is made,
- sets up a provisional creditors' committee if necessary ,
- appoints the insolvency administrator ,
- oversees the insolvency administrator,
- carries out the debt settlement plan procedure, in which a debt settlement plan is first submitted by the debtor and, if the latter is rejected by the bankruptcy court,
- calls the creditors 'meeting, in which the final insolvency administrator is named and a creditors' committee is possibly set up,
- if necessary, requests updated standardized (interim) reports (ForStaB).
Both the debtor and a creditor can apply to open insolvency proceedings . Sufficient justification is decisive for opening the procedure. Reasons for insolvency are insolvency, impending insolvency (if the application is made by the debtor) and over-indebtedness (in the case of legal entities).
The opening of insolvency proceedings as well as security measures are announced by the insolvency courts on a publicly accessible website (insolvency announcements).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Legal Lexicon Online - Insolvency Court
- ↑ ForStaB. Retrieved on February 5, 2018 (German).
- ↑ Justice Portal - Insolvency Announcements. Retrieved June 10, 2019 .