Some 187 foreign creditors claiming a total of 211 million litas (EUR 61.2 m) have asked Vilnius Regional Court and Lithuanian Appeals Court to suspend bankruptcy proceedings and apply to the Constitutional Court and the EU Court of Justice for clarification whether or not the Lithuanian Law on Banks complies with the EU’s directive on depositors’ protection.
According to lawyer Laimonas Marcinkevičius, of law firm Marcinkevičius, Čaikovski ir Partneriai Juridicon, a legislative exemption for the claims of the Deposit and Investment Insurance Fund, which have been placed in the second class of creditors, raises doubts as to whether it complies with the Constitution and Lithuania’s constitutionally enshrined commitments related with the membership in the European Union (EU).
Foreign creditors contest a court-approved over-4-billion-litas claim by the state Deposit and Investment Insurance Fund. Creditors also claim that more than 10 percent of the funds they had held at Snoras were missing from the court-approved list of creditors and that the bank’s bankruptcy administrator allegedly slashed 345,300 litas from each claim of most of those creditors arbitrarily.
Snoras was nationalized on 16 November. Bankruptcy proceedings against the Lithuanian commercial bank were opened on 7 December.
