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Amendments of the Companies Act

2015-11

On 1 November 2015, amendments of the Companies Act mostly affecting liquidation of companies entered into force. Parallel with the amendments of the Companies Act, the Act on Court Register, the Act on Court Fees and the Act on Notarial Fees have also been amended.

Please find below the most important changes with brief overview of its significance to actual liquidation process:

  • The publishing of facts relevant for liquidation in Official Gazette has been abandoned, instead publishing on court registry’s web page has been introduced as less expensive and more transparent solution – e.g. decision on liquidation of a company or call to creditors (besides in company’s publication, if there is any) shall after the amendments of the Companies Act be published on court registry’s web page and not in Official Gazette;
  • the creditors shall be called only 1 time to apply their claims, instead of 3 times, as it was until now –before the amendments, the Companies Act stipulated that between each call to creditors it should pass not less than 15 days or not more than 30 days. The described reduction will shorten the period of time required for liquidating a company;
  • due to the fact that only 1 call to creditors is prescribed, the 1-year period after which assets of a company may be distributed to shareholders starts to run following the first (and only) call to creditors – this amendment actually does not affect the duration of the liquidation much, as it is only adjustment to the reduction of the calls to creditors. Initial proposal that obligatory period of 1 year should be reduced to 6 months was dismissed.

Although above described amendments simplify liquidation process in certain aspects, the liquidation process in Croatia is still a quite demanding procedure acquiring respective amount of time and expertise.

Authors

Portrait ofHrvoje Bardek
Hrvoje Bardek
Counsel
Zagreb
Janko Prošić