site.btaParliament Overturns Presidential Veto on Bankruptcy Act Revisions

Sofia, March 7 (BTA) - A majority in Parliament voted to overturn a presidential veto on parts of the latest revisions to the Bank Bankruptcy Act adopted by Parliament on February 9. The veto was supported by 40 MPs of the Bulgarian Socialist Party and Volya and 129 deputies of the power-sharing GERB and United Patriots, and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) voted against it.

The controversial amendments were moved by three MPs of the MRF - Delyan Peevski, Yordan Tsonev and Hamid Hamid, and were prompted by what they see as secondary plunder of Corporate Commercial Bank (Corpbank) which failed in 2014. The President argued that the vetoed paragraphs "violate the rule of law by regulating retroactively legal consequences, acquired rights and extinguished obligations."

In his reasoning, the President also argued that the Bulgarian people need to know the specific consequences of these amendments. When deciding to apply such an extreme measure, the National Assembly should openly debate on the collaterals to be made void, the number of transactions of stocks and shares to be made invalid, and the approximate value with which the bankruptcy amount of Corpbank will be increased following the law's implementation.

MP Yordan Tsonev told a news briefing in Parliament Wednesday that he agrees with the President about the need to know the specific consequences of the revisions. For this reason, MRF wrote to the Finance Minister to ask him for details on the Corpbank case. They received a reply which indicates that the value of voided Corpbank collaterals is 233,147,298 leva. He also said that the number of set-off lawsuits for Corpbank assets totals 205 and the value of these is 1,174,252,811 leva.

"I believe that these figures will convince the President and Bulgarian people that the public interest is considerable and it worth using this legislative strategy," commented Tsonev.