Interpretation of Article 132 of the Enterprise Bankruptcy Law

Article 132 of the Enterprise Bankruptcy Law of the People's Republic of China, which formally came into effect on June 1, 2007, stipulates that, after the implementation of this Law, the part of the wages, medical care, disability benefits and pension costs owed by the bankrupt to the employees before the date of the promulgation of this Law (August 27, 2006), the basic old-age pension and basic medical insurance costs owed to the employees that shall be transferred to the employees' individual accounts, as well as the compensation that shall be paid to the employees in accordance with the provisions of laws and administrative regulations, shall be paid in the amount stipulated in Article 109 of this Law. The compensation that should be paid to the employees in accordance with the provisions of laws and regulations, and the portion that is not sufficient to be liquidated after liquidation in accordance with the provisions of Article 113 of this Law, shall be compensated by the specific property stipulated in Article 109 of this Law in preference to the right holders who have a security right in the specific property.

For example: a limited liability company was declared bankrupt by the local people's court on September 20, 2006, and then entered the stage of liquidation and distribution of bankruptcy property. The final remaining assets of the enterprise is 300,000 yuan, the enterprise bankruptcy costs and *** benefit debt *** 70,000 yuan, foreign debt of 1 million yuan, of which the enterprise's machinery and equipment has a mortgage creditor A's secured claim is 180,000 yuan, the enterprise in August 27, 2006 owed to the employees' wages, medical care, disability benefits, pensions, owed to the employees' personal accounts should be transferred to the basic pension insurance, basic medical insurance costs, as well as legal and administrative costs, the basic pension insurance costs. Basic pension insurance, basic medical insurance costs, and compensation that should be paid to the employees as stipulated by laws and administrative regulations **** amounted to 150,000 yuan. In this case, according to the provisions of Article 109 of the Enterprise Bankruptcy Law, secured creditor A has the right of priority, that is to say, the enterprise's final remaining assets of 200,000 yuan should be paid to A 180,000 yuan, the remaining 120,000 yuan in accordance with the provisions of Article 113 for the distribution of the employee's wages and so on, and finally obtained the amount of liquidation of 50,000 yuan (30-18-7=5). But the intent of Article 132 is not to allow such a result, that is, the new Enterprise Bankruptcy Law, in order to protect the interests of the enterprise employees to a greater extent, in Article 132, the interests of the enterprise employees to a certain extent, priority over the secured claims of secured creditors.

Returning to this case, according to the provisions of Article 132, the wages of the employees are the first to be satisfied, which means that the final 300,000 yuan of the bankrupt enterprise should be the first to satisfy the 150,000 yuan of the wages of the employees, and after that there is 150,000 yuan for the satisfaction of the claim of the mortgagee A.

It should be noted here that the Enterprise Bankruptcy Law, Article 132 of the application of the conditions are very strict: the time conditions of the wages owed by the bankruptcy of the employees before August 27, 2006, if it is after this time, the new Enterprise Bankruptcy Law will apply to the provisions of the provisions of the use of collateral rights have priority over the provisions of the employees' claims for the liquidation of the provisions. As for the transition period (August 27, 2006 to June 1, 2007) to adopt what method, I think it should be resolved in accordance with the new law, the reason is very simple: because this period is not included in Article 132.

Attachment:

Article 109 A right holder with a security right in specific property of the bankrupt has a right to priority of payment in respect of that specific property.

Article 113 The bankruptcy estate, after giving priority to the liquidation of the bankruptcy expenses and ****beneficial debts, shall be liquidated in accordance with the following order: (1) the wages and medical treatment, disability benefits and pension expenses owed by the bankrupt to the employees, the basic old-age pension insurance and basic medical insurance expenses owed to the employees that should be transferred to their individual accounts, and the compensations that should be paid to the employees as stipulated by the laws and administrative regulations;

(ii) the social insurance expenses other than those stipulated in the preceding paragraph and the taxes owed by the bankrupt;

(iii) ordinary bankruptcy claims.

If the bankruptcy estate is insufficient to satisfy the claims of the same order, it shall be distributed in proportion.

The salaries of directors, supervisors and senior management of the bankrupt enterprise shall be calculated in accordance with the average salary of the employees of the enterprise.