Court Supervision of the Determination of the Votes at the First General Meeting of Creditors in Estonian Bankruptcy Law

• Author: Mari Schihalejev
• Pages: 76-84

76 JURIDICA INTERNATIONAL 26/2017

Mari Schihalejev

Doctoral student

University of Tartu

Court Supervision of the

Determination of the Votes

at the First General Meeting

of Creditors in Estonian

Bankruptcy Law

1. Introduction

Creditors’ votes have supreme power in bankruptcy proceedings. The creditors have a right to take deci-

sions in the proceedings by using their votes. Those decisions are adopted by a simple majority of the votes

of the creditors participating in the meeting. The decisions put to a vote at the f‌i rst general meeting (hereaf-

ter FGM) of creditors constitute the most important issues in the proceedings. These decisions inf‌l uence the

status of the subsequent proceedings, and sometimes this ef‌f ect may determine the general direction of the

proceedings. Hence, it can be said that the process of determining creditors’ votes in bankruptcy proceed-

ings is crucial. However, as in many other countries, in Estonian bankruptcy law the process of determining

the votes is problematic.

Estonia’s f‌i rst Bankruptcy Act was passed 25 years ago, in 1992, and has been continuously amended.

In addition to undergoing several minor amendments, the Bankruptcy Act was amended in its entirety in

1996, 2003, and 2009.*1 Estonian bankruptcy law has provided three distinct procedures for the determi-

nation of votes at the FGM of creditors: 1) the votes are determined only by the trustee; 2) the votes deter-

mined by the trustee are approved by the court; or 3) under the current law, the court intervenes only if

there is a dispute over the determination of the votes.

One of the main issues over the years, which there have been attempts to resolve, is the problem of

determining the votes before the defence of claims. This problem was recognised already in 1993–1994,

for the amount of the claim is not clear before the defence of the claims.*2 However, the number of votes of

each creditor corresponds to the amount of the creditor’s claim. During preparation of the Bankruptcy Act,

 P. Varul. Maksejõuetuse areng Eestis [‘Developments in insolvency law in Estonia’]. – Juridica /, p.  (in Estonian).

 P. Varul. Selgitavaid märkusi pankrotiseadusele [‘Explanatory remarks on the law of bankruptcy’]. – Juridica /, p. 

(in Estonian). P. Varul. Selgitavaid märkusi pankrotiseadusele [‘Explanatory remarks on the law of bankruptcy’]. – Juridica

/, p.  (in Estonian).

https://doi.org/10.12697/JI.2017.26.08