REASONABLE TIME AND BANKRUPTCY OF SOCIALLY-OWNED ENTERPRISES

Abstract

The subject matter of this paper is the bankruptcy of socially-owned enterprises. The aim is to examine the implications of bankruptcy proceedings against socially-owned enterprises on the budget of the Republic of Serbia and its taxpayers. The starting hypothesis is that the bankruptcies of socially-owned enterprises will have a significant negative impact on the budget of RS and its taxpayers. In order to test this hypothesis, we used the technique of descriptive statistics to determine the differences between the Commercial Courts in Belgrade, Niš and Kragujevac in terms of the average duration of bankruptcy proceedings, the maximum and minimum duration of cases, and the percentage of cases pending over four or three years. In addition, we provide a hypothetical calculation of the costs of the bankruptcy proceedings of all socially-owned enterprises in the three commercial courts in case the objection for the protection of the right to a trial within a reasonable time has been affirmed. The results show that there are no significant differences between the three commercial courts in the time dimension of the bankruptcy of socially-owned enterprises, given the fact that the vast majority of cases exceed the reasonable time limits and that such lengthy proceedings will significantly burden the RS budget.