Court compels the Wage Guarantee Fund to pay debt … – The Associated Press

             

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Administrative and Fiscal Court (TAF) Almada gave reason to a worker Novopca declared insolvent company and initiated a recovery plan, forcing the Wage Guarantee Fund (SGF) to pay him labor missing credits . In the ruling, the first of several cases brought to court, the court believes that it is important to “insolvency be recognized by the courts, either involving or recovery.”

                 

                      The sentence comes at a time that unions have condemned the management of FGS refuses to pay wages and other credits to employees of companies that have recovery plans to run in the courts – is under insolvency proceedings or Special Process Revitalization (PER), created in 2012 as an alternative to bankruptcy court. The insolvency practitioners, which accompany these processes, fear that these refusals lead workers to vote against recovery of businesses and increase bankruptcies.

In the sentence to which the public had access, court goes further and warn that the interpretation of services makes “potentially useless” the objective of the fund created to pay off debts to employees when companies are in financial trouble or encase doors. The arguments TAF Almada were not disputed by the Financial Management Institute of Social Security, responsible for managing the fund, which chose not to appeal the decision.

At issue is an employee of the construction company Novopca declared insolvent in May 2011 and was subsequently the subject of a recovery plan approved in January 2012. Worker presented in July 2011, an application to the FGS to receive unpaid wages and severance pay. The answer came in December of that year:. Request was rejected because “the credits required to FGS will be dissolved by the approval of the recovery plan for the company”

TAF Almada remember that protection of claims workers in the event of insolvency is a state obligation via a European directive 2008. alert and that the use of FGS “can not be held hostage to the decisions of creditors of insolvent companies.”

And alert that, in this case, the company has not paid workers and that even if it had, the FGS would have limited the forward part of the credits, becoming a creditor of the company. If the understanding of the fund manager, the Financial Management Institute of Social Security, was adopted, adds “workers could be irreparably penalized and disadvantaged” because the FGS “moved away before the mere promise to pay, embodied in any plan insolvency, would render useless the system introduced. “

The financial situation of Novopca came to confirm, moreover, that the fact that a plan approved payments does not mean that the situation of workers be safeguarded. The plan was not fulfilled and lenders required a PER for the company, the court recently decided not to approve.

TAF believes that after a court declared the insolvency of a company, the FGS “should decide 30 days after the request of the employee, whether at a later time come to be any insolvency plan approved. ” This decision gives some encouragement to the other ten employees of the company also filed claims against the fund and will eventually help clarify the understanding that the services and the Ministry of Employment itself have these situations.

Jorge estimated , lawyer who has some of the cases at hand, remember that the FGS “never distinguished between the processes with the insolvency plan and those declaring bankruptcy,” adding that the processes mediated by Iapmei, the FGS also pays credit to workers. It is a paradox, since these latter processes is also agreed a payment plan with creditors, although for such procedures.

Pottery Valadares, declared insolvent in 2012, is another case that is divide workers and FGS. The delay in the fund to 318 requests responses was the subject of a formal inquiry sent by the Ministry of Employment PCP in April 2014.’s Answer came in early July. The Chief Cabinet Minister Pedro Mota Soares undertook to require more speed services. However, justified the delays with a very similar argument to that used for the background Novopca. As approved under the insolvency plan “perspective is” the payment of all claims, such “determine the rejection of applications.” So reads the letter, “it was understood not prioritize the consideration of the appeal.”