House unanimously passes law to fast-track part of lost Laiki deposits

By unanimous vote, the House on Thursday passed legislation aiming to fast-track the return of at least part of the moneys that legacy Laiki’s depositors lost when the bank went into administration in 2013.

The change affects an estimated 14,000 depositors of Laiki whose savings were wiped out in the bail-in or ‘haircut’.

The bill essentially amends the bankruptcy law, making the process of debt verification easier in certain cases.

Now, with a court’s permission, different procedures may apply in compensating creditors of an insolvent company.

In the case of ex-Laiki’s depositors, seeking to recoup some of their lost savings, they’d be able to be represented en masse by the bank’s liquidator – rather than each one of them having to file a sworn statement with a court and then send registered letters to the liquidator, as was the case up until now.

Nine years after Laiki’s collapse, a liquidator has yet to be appointed for the lender. The entity is still under administration. Meanwhile the bank’s assets have declined over time.

Laiki’s assets are currently believed to be worth anywhere from €200 million to €230 million.

Dividing this amount by the number of ‘haircut’ depositors would work out to each depositor getting back a mere 4 per cent of the savings they lost.

For context, the total savings in Laiki that were lost in 2013 came to €3.2 billion.