display
Wiesbaden (dpa) - The number of corporate bankruptcies fell to its lowest level since 1999 despite the Corona crisis last year.
The German local courts reported 15,841 corporate bankruptcies.
That was 15.5 percent less than in the previous year, as announced by the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden.
The economic hardship of many companies was not reflected in the figures because the obligation to file for bankruptcy was suspended during the crisis.
According to the authority, it was the lowest level since the bankruptcy code was introduced in 1999.
According to the statisticians, the obligation to submit an application for insolvent companies, which has been in effect again since October 2020, has so far only had a slight effect due to the processing time of the courts, among other things.
The obligation was suspended until the end of December for over-indebted companies.
This continues to apply until the end of April for those companies that are still pending the payment of the state aid planned since November 1st.
display
Usually, an application for bankruptcy must be filed no later than three weeks after a reason for bankruptcy such as over-indebtedness or insolvency has occurred.
Experts initially feared that the number of company bankruptcies would increase this year due to the corona crisis.
The expected claims of the creditors amounted to almost 44.1 billion euros.
A year earlier, at around 26.8 billion euros, significantly fewer were in the fire.
According to the information, more economically important companies filed for bankruptcy than in 2019. The headlines were above all the spectacular bankruptcy of the financial services provider Wirecard.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210331-99-37296 / 2