§ 5-3. The district court's handling of compulsory debt settlement
Machine-translated from Norwegian. The Norwegian text is the one that applies. Read the original in Norwegian.Norsk English العربية Polski Українська
In brief
- The court (retten) immediately makes a preliminary review of the proposal and can give the debtor (skyldner) a short deadline to remedy obstacles.
- Otherwise, the debtor and the creditors (kreditorer) are summoned to an oral hearing, and the creditors are given a deadline for written statements.
- The debtor can amend the proposal at the court hearing (rettsmøte), and affected creditors may give their views.
- If necessary, the court can extend the debt negotiation period (gjeldsforhandlingsperiode).
The text of the law (unofficial translation)
§ 5-3. The district court's procedure
What does this mean?
This section describes how the district court handles a petition for compulsory debt settlement. The court immediately carries out a preliminary review. If it sees an obstacle to confirmation by the court (approval) under § 5-4, the debtor is given a short period to adjust the proposal or give their view, including orally. If the obstacle is not removed, the petition may be rejected.
Example: On its first review, the court sees that the proposal breaks the rules on content. The debtor is then given a short period to correct this, and can give their view orally. If the error is not corrected, the petition may be rejected.
If the petition is not rejected, the debtor and all known creditors who are affected are summoned to an oral hearing. The proposal is included with the summons, and the creditors are given a deadline to send written statements before the court hearing. The statements can be sent electronically. As a general rule, a statement that arrives too late, or where a copy has not been sent to the debtor at the same time, is not taken into account. The exception is that the court must refuse confirmation by the court in any case when the statement shows that the conditions for doing so are met.
At the court hearing, the debtor can amend the proposal if this is needed to remove an obstacle. Creditors who are adversely affected by the amendment are given the opportunity to give their views, and the court can extend the debt negotiation period if necessary.
This section sits in the middle of the sequence. The petition is made under § 5-1 and must include a proposal that complies with § 5-2. The grounds for refusing confirmation by the court are set out in § 5-4: that the settlement appears offensive, that a procedural error has not been corrected and has clearly had an effect, or that so many claims are disputed that the proposal cannot be assessed. The decision is made by court ruling (kjennelse), and only the debtor can appeal a refusal to a higher court (anke).