Estonia proposal calls for single insolvency competence centre to help debtors and creditors

Estonian legal expert Signe Viimsalu has published an opinion piece arguing that the country's current insolvency system fails both debtors and creditors because the process is split across multiple bodies — debt counsellors, courts, bankruptcy trustees and others — who cannot share information with each other due to data protection rules.

Problems on both sides

Individuals trying to get out of debt must navigate the process largely on their own, and some abandon it partway through because they cannot keep track of the different stages. Creditors, including businesses and unpaid workers, must deal separately with trustees, courts, a bankruptcy committee, and investigative and supervisory bodies just to learn the status of a case and whether money will be recovered.

Viimsalu notes that in Estonia, managers of insolvent companies with no remaining assets leave creditors short by close to 400,000 euros on average, without facing legal consequences. According to the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs, the number of bankruptcy filings has been rising: 1,451 in 2022, 1,936 in 2023, 2,058 in 2024, 1,973 in 2025, and 839 as of May this year.

Uneven caseload

Statistics for 2024 and 2025 show that almost 60 percent of all cases were handled by just 11 trustees, while about ten trustees earn no income at all from this work, and roughly 39 trustees handle only one to six bankruptcy cases per year.

Examples from other countries

Viimsalu points to Ireland, where a single corporate enforcement authority oversees the business register, liquidators and economic crime investigations, and to Sweden, where the largest insolvency reform since 1987 took effect on 1 July 2026, consolidating key functions into one enforcement authority, Kronofogden, and one information system. She adds that Latvia and Lithuania have already taken a similar path. According to Viimsalu, existing trustees could be integrated into a future single centre with full-time status and social guarantees they currently lack.