Agrokor says it did not actually want to postpone the deadline by which it has to publish a list of all its debts.
The Commercial Court in Zagreb rejected a request made by Ante Ramljak, the government-appointed extraordinary commissioner of Agrokor, Croatia’s largest privately-owned company. On 8 August, Ramljak submitted an application for the deadline for the publication of Agrokor’s debts to be postponed by 45 days, reports Jutarnji List on August 18, 2017.
According to the Commercial Court's decision, signed by Judge Nevenka Siladi Rstić and available on the court's website, in a ruling issued by the Commercial Court on 13 July Agrokor had stated that after 11 September it will be able to credibly present the relations between creditors and all 76 companies which are members of the group and which are included in the extraordinary administration procedure. The Commercial Court says that it can only allow for the extension of deadlines which have been set by itself, which is not the case here.
Although this might seem like a blow to Agrokor's extraordinary administration, sources close to the company claim that the truth is actually the opposite, and that the Commercial Court only confirmed what the management had claimed earlier, namely, that the list of all debts cannot be published before 11 September. The number of companies which are included in the extraordinary administration procedure has changed on several occasions, which means that the starting point for the 60-day deadline has also moved. Therefore, according to sources from Agrokor, the list of claims cannot be published before 11 September and the court now confirmed that in its ruling.
“Agrokor will not appeal the Commercial Court ruling because it gives instructions on how to file claims and confirms that the joint list of claims can be expected after 11 September. In other words, the court finds that it cannot change the deadlines because they were defined by the Parliament, and the deadlines, given that the joint list of companies covered by the extraordinary administration procedure has been changed on several occasions, do not start to run at the same time for everybody,” said the source.
The ruling itself pointed out that this was a very extensive business undertaking. To date, more than 12,800 applications with more than two million pages have been received. Agrokor's extraordinary administration complains that some creditors reported same claims more than once. The court’s decision also provides instructions on how to deal with such situations.
Translated from Jutranji List.
