sou 1999 1 - Regeringen

SOU 1999:1 Summary 31
Certain financial information
In conjunction with bankruptcies, the largest amount of claims relates to
creditors without rights of priority. The amount of their claims equal the
amount of all other creditors. Claims by creditors (usually banks) whose
claims are secured by business mortgage constitute an amount more than
half the size of claims of creditors without rights of priority. Thereafter, the
State’s tax claims constitute an amount half the size of claims secured by
business mortgages. Wage claims, in their turn, constitute an amount approximately
half the size of tax claims.
On average, floating charges provide a dividend of approximately 45% of
the amount of the claim. Tax and wage claims usually yield approximately
10%, while on average creditors without right of priority receive only 3%. It
is, however, difficult to talk in terms of averages in this context. Thus, the
median dividend on wage claims is 0%, from which it is evident that, for the
employees, wage guarantees are more important than rights of priority for
wage claims.
The tasks of the Right of Priority Committee
The rules with respect to composition were previously set forth in an Act
from 1970 (no. 847). This entailed, primarily, that individual execution
measures were prohibited during the period of time in which composition
negotiations were pending and that, following a qualified majority vote, the
claims of creditors without rights of priority could be reduced, normally to a
minimum of 25%.
In 1992, a committee designated as the Insolvency Committee presented a
proposal (SOU 1992:113) for a Business Reorganisation Act which was
intended to replace the Composition Act and, hopefully, increase the number
of compositions. In fact, Sweden has had only approximately 50 judicial
compositions per year, while there are approximately 9,000 bankruptcies.
Following prolonged consideration by the Ministry of Justice, the new Act
was enacted in 1996 (no. 764). The changes were not great. Where possible,
company reorganisations should be brought forward and can now be initiated
as soon as payment difficulties arise, even though there is not necessarily
a situation of insolvency. During the attempted reorganisation, financing
is facilitated by a new right of priority for loans to the debtor under
reorganisation (section 10 of the Right of Priority Act). The debtor under
reorganisation should also more easily be able to retain advantageous contracts.
In Chapter 2, section 20 of the Business Reorganisation Act, a rule
has been introduced whereby, following the initiation of a reorganisation,