FINLAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Timo Lehtimäki, Niklas Thibblin, Essi Hietaoja and Oona Honkamaa, Waselius
programme. Also, secured creditors who represent a minimum of 5% of all the secured claims may propose an alternative restructuring programme to the court. If a pledgee or, in particular, an entire group of creditors opposes restructuring, the restructuring programme can only be accepted by the court provided that cer - tain specific requirements are satisfied. The court may accept the restructuring programme (with some exceptions): • with the approval of all known restructuring credi - tors; or • with the approval of each class of creditors (in general, secured and unsecured creditors and ben - eficiaries of floating charges form different classes of creditors), with such approvals to be obtained in the manner as set out in the Restructuring Act. On a general level, a class of creditors is deemed to have approved the restructuring programme if the pro - gramme is supported by: • more than 50% of the creditors in number that took part in the voting within such class of credi - tors (creditors with large receivables are typically kept in separate classes from creditors with small receivables); and • creditors representing more than 50% of the aggre - gate monetary value of the claims represented in the voting of such class of creditors. However – and while in practice this should be very unlikely – where secured creditors and floating charge creditors oppose the restructuring, the court may still accept the restructuring programme even if each class of creditor did not approve it, so long as at least one creditor group voted in favour of the programme (as per the above) and the claims of all creditors who vot - ed in favour of the restructuring programme account for at least one fifth of all eligible claims (provided that there are no impediments to the acceptance of the programme).
The decisions by the court in relation to the restructur - ing proceedings or restructuring programme can be appealed by any party with a vested interest in the matter, as provided by the general procedural rules of Finnish law. 7.10 Expedited Restructurings The normal course of the restructuring process can be deviated from under certain conditions specified by law, when the parties involved aim to start the restructuring process or to confirm the restructuring programme more quickly than usual. The so-called expedited restructuring process ( nopeu- tettu saneerausmenettely ) is a type of combined vol - untary and statutory restructuring, where a draft pro - gramme prepared outside the process is submitted for court approval. This entails that all the acceleration methods available under the Restructuring Act can be utilised at the district court stage, significantly short - ening the duration of this phase. The expedited restructuring process is generally only useful in situations where the company is – despite its financial difficulties – still able to agree on debt arrangements and business restructuring measures with its major creditors. In practice, expedited restruc - turing processes are carried out quite infrequently.
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