Archive post: »Serial-bankruptcy entrepreneurs ride on – time and again« · 2021-10-17

• Ulrik Rammeskow Bang-Pedersen — Mentioned in the current archived text

Source title: Konkursryttere rider videre – gang på gang

Text version dated 17 Oct 2021

Konkursryttere rider videre - gang på gang Det skal være lovligt at fejle og lære af fejlen. Hvis ingen tør satse, sker der ingen udvikling. Derfor er det ok at fejle nogle få gange.

Men… hvis man har stribevis af konkurser på CV’et, er det sikkert ikke hændelige uheld. Nogle virksomhedsledere bygger hele deres erhvervskarriere på at spekulere i konkursrytteri og selskabstømning. Og de er altså svære at slå af hesten.

Men, hvor meget koster konkursrytterne reelt staten… og dermed dig som skatteborger? Tja, i den vedhæftede artikel (fra Børsen i 2011) lavede Konkursrådet et skøn over, hvor meget disse kreative mennesker kostede samfundet: Gennemsnitligt cirka 17,5 millioner kroner per rytter. Her er et kort uddrag fra artiklen: ” -Det er svært at sætte et præcist antal personer eller kroner og ører på, men der er ingen tvivl om, at der samlet set bliver tabt meget store beløb på, at nogle groft uansvarlige ledelser går ned med deres virksomheder, siger juraprofessor Ulrik Rammeskow Bang-Pedersen.

Han har som formand for Konkursrådet været med til at kulegrave området for første gang nogensinde. Her tog man bl.a. udgangspunkt i beregninger fra Skatteministeriet, der viser, at gennemsnitsudgiften for staten på de 40 nævnte konkursryttere var 17,5 mio. kr. Hvis det gennemsnit er dækkende for de sager, Skat ikke kender til, men som Konkursrådet har skønnet sig frem til, ryger statens udgift på konkursrytteriet op på mere end 5,5 mia. kr.

I 2010 var antallet af konkurser herhjemme nemlig rekordstort med hele 6493 mod 5710 i 2009. Konkursrådet skønner, at der i 5 pct. af tilfældene ville kunne udstedes karantæner til konkursrytter – altså i over 300 tilfælde med en mulig gennemsnitlig udgift på 17,5 mio. kr. Dertil skal lægges, at det offentliges tab typisk kun udgør en tredjedel af tabet i en konkurs.

Regningen til hele samfundet kan således snildt ende på et tocifret milliardbeløb årligt.” Tallene i Børsens artikel er fra 2011. Siden dengang er der blevet mulighed for at give de mest aktive ryttere konkurskarantæne. Men det kræver, at der er skattefolk, der er dygtige nok til at udrede de stadig mere komplicerede selskabskonstruktioner, som de kreative erhvervsfolk til gengæld opruster med for at blive siddende sikkert i sadlen.

Kritikere mener dog, at muligheden for konkurskarantæne rammer for bredt. Altså, at muligheden for at give konkurskarantæne i stort omfang bruges til at ramme små iværksættere, der har haft en smule startvanskeligheder. Ganske enkelt fordi det er rigtig dyrt at gå efter de meget dygtige professionelle konkursryttere.

Det burde være lovligt at fejle, også mere end en gang. Men når man har snesevis af konkurser bag sig - virker det både bevidst og systematisk. Konkursryttere koster samfundet milliarder https://borsen.dk/nyheder/generelt/konkursryttere-koster-samfundet-milliarder1 https://www.berlingske.dk/virksomheder/eksplosion-i-konkurskarantaener-skaber-bekymring-det-skal-vaere

This is an automatic reading translation. The source’s allegations and assessments have not been independently confirmed through translation. Check wording, qualifications and meaning against the preserved Danish original. Some retained numbers may use Danish separators: a dot for thousands and a comma for decimals. Check amounts against the Danish original.

Serial-bankruptcy entrepreneurs ride on
—again and again

It must be legal to fail and learn from failure. If nobody dares take a chance, there is no development. That is why it is OK to fail a few times.

But if your CV lists a whole series of bankruptcies, they are probably not accidental mishaps. Some business leaders build their entire careers on exploiting serial bankruptcies and stripping company assets. They are difficult to knock off their horses.

But how much do serial-bankruptcy entrepreneurs really cost the state… and therefore you as a taxpayer? Well, in the attached article from Børsen in 2011, Konkursrådet estimated how much these creative people cost society: An average of approximately 17,5 million kroner per serial-bankruptcy entrepreneur. Here is a short excerpt from the article:
“It is difficult to put an exact number of people or an exact financial amount on it, but there is no doubt that overall very large sums are lost when grossly irresponsible management teams go down with their companies,” says law professor Ulrik Rammeskow Bang-Pedersen.

As chairman of Konkursrådet, he has helped investigate the field thoroughly for the first time ever. Among other things, they used calculations from Skatteministeriet showing that the average cost to the state for the 40 serial-bankruptcy entrepreneurs mentioned was 17,5 million kr. If that average is representative of cases Skat does not know about but Konkursrådet has estimated, the state's cost of exploitation of serial bankruptcies rises to more than 5.5 billion DKK.

In 2010, the number of bankruptcies in Denmark was a record 6493 compared with 5710 in 2009. Konkursrådet estimates that disqualifications could be issued to serial-bankruptcy entrepreneurs in 5 per cent of cases, that is, more than 300 cases with a possible average cost of 17.5 million DKK. It should also be added that public-sector losses typically account for only a third of the losses in a bankruptcy.

The bill for society as a whole can therefore easily end up at a double-digit billion amount annually.’
The figures in Børsen's article are from 2011. Since then, it has become possible to impose bankruptcy-related disqualification from company management on the most active serial-bankruptcy entrepreneurs. But this requires tax officials skilled enough to unravel the increasingly complicated corporate structures that these creative businesspeople, in turn, build up to remain firmly in the saddle.

Critics believe, however, that the possibility of such disqualification casts too wide a net. In other words, the possibility of imposing bankruptcy disqualification is widely used to target small entrepreneurs who have had a few difficulties getting started. Quite simply because it is very expensive to pursue the highly skilled professional exploiters of bankruptcies.

It should be lawful to fail, even more than once. But when you have dozens of bankruptcies behind you, it seems both deliberate and systematic.

Read more here:

Serial-bankruptcy entrepreneurs cost society billions. A new in-depth investigation reveals staggering costs involving grossly irresponsible managing directors whose companies go bankrupt. Alone…

Explosion in bankruptcy disqualifications causes concern: ‘It must be legal to fail.’ Read more here.