FINLAND
 
As at 2 February 2018

By Tuula Linna
Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Helsinki

 
Proceedings
Elements of the Directive already included into the national legislation
yrityssaneerausmenettely
The Restructuring Act corresponds to the proposed directive with some needs for amendments (see below).
 
 
Proceedings
Elements of the Directive which may be included into the national legislation
yrityssaneerausmenettely
 
The Finnish legislation lacks provisions on pre-insolvency proceedings.
 
The existing simplified version of the restructuring proceedings resembles pre-insolvency proceedings, but the requirements for the opening of the proceedings are stricter.
 
In the Finnish law, there is no 3 years discharge period of debts of entrepreneurs; usually, restructuring plans are longer than that, and the liquidation proceedings (konkurssi) do not discharge from debts.
 
Only possibility for debt discharge is the debt adjustment of private persons. However, the duration of the payment plan in debt adjustment is 5 years in cases where the debtor is not able to repay anything.
 
Regarding the responsibilities of directors (management), the Finnish legislation probably needs some amendments especially concerning other types of enterprises than limited companies. Too strict responsibilities of the directors may lead to useless restructuring efforts of non-viable enterprises.
 
So called absolute priority -rule is not in use in the present system.