Company liquidation in Lithuania

Lithuania has the shortest statutory wait of the four European closings we run, and the company itself decides what shape the calendar takes. The law offers two ways of telling creditors, and the difference between them is measured in months.

The way this closing works under other laws is gathered under closing a company; our Lithuanian work beyond it is on the Lithuania page.

What has to be decided first

• A decision to liquidate, taken by a qualified majority which the articles set and which cannot be lower than 2/3 of the votes of the participants attending the meeting.
• A liquidator, who must be an individual and meets the same requirements as a company manager.
• The handover: from the appointment the liquidator holds the powers of the manager and the board, and they lose theirs.
• The words for liquidation in the documents the company uses with everyone outside it.
• A later effective date, if the meeting wants one, though it cannot fall before the day the decision was taken.

How creditors are told, and what that starts

• Route one: the notice is published 3 times, with intervals of at least 30 days, in the source named in the articles.
• Route two: the notice is published once in that source and every creditor is notified in writing.
• Either way the notice carries the full set of company details the Civil Code lists, so a short announcement will not do.
• The assets may go to shareholders no earlier than 2 months after all the steps of the chosen route are complete.
• While a court dispute over the company's debts is open, nothing is distributed until it ends and the creditors are paid.

What the register asks in euros

Creditors are paid in an order the Civil Code fixes: secured claims out of the pledged property first, then employment claims and health damage, then taxes and state social insurance, then everyone else. A liquidation that lasts longer than 12 months adds annual financial statements and a liquidation report, drawn up within 3 months of each year end and open to every shareholder and creditor. At the end the liquidator hands the documents over for storage, arranges for the company's website address to be cancelled and files the liquidation act.

Sources: the notice routes, the 2 months and the liquidator's duties — articles 73 and 74 of the Law on Companies; the majority, the notice and the order of claims — articles 2.107, 2.112 and 2.113 of the Civil Code; the fees — government resolution 763.