About €233 million has gone unpaid by roughly 600–650 companies in three and a half years, the head of the national insolvency service says, following a rise of phoenix schemes.
In some cases, thousands of company names, which often form part of an international network, have been registered to a single address.
The service and bankruptcy trustees say the practice is openly sold, with struggling firms handed to stand-in directors, moved abroad or parked at addresses hosting hundreds of debtors.
A phoenix scheme, known in Estonian as “company burial,” sees the same business transferred to a new company, then another and on and on. While each company becomes insolvent, its debts are not carried to the next firm.
Signe Viimsalu, who…