Polish National Debtors Register is now operational!

On December 1, 2021, the National Debtors Register (NDR) began operations. According to the legislator’s assumptions, its functioning is to increase the safety of business transactions through easier verification of contractors, but it will also contribute to the acceleration of bankruptcy and restructuring proceedings and their total electronization.

The National Debtors Register (“NDR”) is a register maintained pursuant to the Act of 6.12.2018 on the National Debtors Register. It replaces in part the Register of Insolvent Debtors maintained pursuant to the provisions of the Act of 20.8.1997 on the National Court Register, as well as the Central Register of Restructuring and Bankruptcy, which never came into existence.

The Register was created in response to the obligation under Regulation (EU) 2015/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20.5.2015 on insolvency proceedings, where it is provided that each Member State is obliged to establish and maintain at least one register in which information on insolvency proceedings is published. However, the scope of information published in the NDR is broader and includes, inter alia, information previously published in the Register of Insolvent Debtors. NDR is an open and free-of-charge register. Everyone is entitled to get acquainted with the data disclosed in the Register as well as with the data covered by the announcements.

Within NDR you can use four dedicated portals:

1. Public Portal – where everyone may, free of charge and without the necessity of creating an account, view announcements and search, among others, information on bankruptcy and restructuring proceedings conducted against individuals and entities, the list of restructuring advisors or view information on the components of the bankruptcy estate;
2. Registered User Portal – in which, after registration, you can submit applications and procedural writs in restructuring proceedings, bankruptcy proceedings and proceedings on the ban on conducting business activity, you can view the files of these proceedings and receive correspondence related to these proceedings;
3. Register for Public Administration Bodies – intended for bodies obliged to publish specific information about persons and entities in the NDR;
4. Industry Users Portal – dedicated to receivers, supervisors and managers performing activities in restructuring and bankruptcy proceedings.

In the public part of the NDR, intended for all users and not requiring the creation of an account on the site, you will find information about:

1. natural persons, legal persons and organizational units which are not legal persons and which are granted legal capacity by the act – against which proceedings are being or have been conducted:
   1. restructuring within the meaning of the Restructuring Law and for making an arrangement at a meeting of creditors within the meaning of Article 491²⁵ of the Bankruptcy Law,
   1. bankruptcy or secondary bankruptcy proceedings,
   1. concluded with a final decision banning the conduct of business activity pursuant to Article 373.1 of the Bankruptcy Law,
   1. on the recognition of a decision on the opening of foreign bankruptcy proceedings;
2. partners in commercial partnerships who are liable for the company’s obligations without limitation with all their assets, if the company has been declared bankrupt, secondary bankruptcy proceedings have been initiated against the company or the motion to declare the company bankrupt has been dismissed pursuant to Article 13.1 or 2 of the Bankruptcy Law;
3. natural persons, legal persons and organizational entities which are not legal persons and which are granted legal capacity by the act – against whom enforcement proceedings conducted by a court enforcement officer or a court have been discontinued due to the fact that no sum greater than the enforcement costs will be obtained from the enforcement, or enforcement proceedings conducted by the head of the tax office or the head of the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) branch have been discontinued due to the fact that no sum greater than the enforcement costs will be obtained from the enforcement;
4. natural persons subject to enforcement proceedings for alimony benefits and enforcement of state budget receivables arising from benefits paid in case of ineffective enforcement of alimony, who are in arrears with their payments for more than 3 months.

In addition to its informational function, the National Debtors Register will also serve as a platform for bankruptcy and restructuring proceedings. From 1 December 2021, in accordance with the amended provisions of bankruptcy and restructuring laws, applications and letters in those proceedings will be filed exclusively via an NDR system using the forms existing there; this applies, inter alia, to bankruptcy petitions, restructuring petitions or claims submissions. Voting on the arrangement and collecting creditors’ votes will also take place via the system. Judgments issued by courts will be prepared and delivered in the NDR system. Certain statutorily defined groups of entities will be exempt from the obligation to file letters in bankruptcy and restructuring proceedings through the NDR.

It will also be possible to view files of pending bankruptcy and restructuring proceedings (after logging in to the Registered User Portal). The publicly accessible part of the NDR will include announcements that have so far been made via MSiG (pol. Monitor Sądowy i Gospodarczy).

It is worth noting that proceedings that are not concluded before 1 December 2021 (i.e. proceedings in which an application for bankruptcy or restructuring has been filed before that date) will be conducted in accordance with the existing analogue rules and will not be entered into the NDR system. In accordance with the regulations, the previous welds will not be entered into the NDR and they will be kept in the current, paper form.

The National Debtors Register operates within the Court Registers Portal available at www.prs.ms.gov.pl. On the indicated website there is a tab which by clicking on it redirects us directly to the platform of National Debtors Register. A direct link to National Debtors Register is: www.krz.ms.gov.pl.

Łukasz Lipski, Associate, trainee attorney-at-law