Claimants and defendants in the Vitebsk Regional Economic Court have started concluding settlement agreements twice as often

April 20, Vitebsk / Sergey Kochetov - BELTA/. More than 50% of cases considered by the economic court of the Vitebsk region on claims of business entities and organizations in the first quarter of 2010 were terminated due to the conclusion of settlement agreements. This is more than double the figure for the same period last year, the head of the court's judicial practice department, Olga Kibisova, told a BELTA correspondent. In total, in the first quarter, the court considered over 2.2 thousand claim cases (18% more than in the same period of 2009). This is primarily due to an increase in the number of cases that are subsequently settled through mediation, noted Olga Kibisova. Proceedings in more than 1.1 thousand cases were terminated, including in 93% of such cases, the parties concluded settlement agreements. In the first quarter, such a simplified procedure as mediation was opened for more than 1.1 thousand cases (in the first quarter of 2009 - 232 cases), of which more than 80.6% were concluded with settlement agreements. In January-March, the number of applications for initiating order proceedings, which is also a simplified procedure of economic justice, increased by almost 30%. In this category of cases, the number of applications filed by banks for the recovery of loan debt more than doubled (from 105 to 244). Also, the number of appeals by RUP "Vitebskenergo" in order proceedings for the recovery of debts for consumed electricity increased by almost half. Another trend of the current year was a decrease of almost 30% in the number of applications in order proceedings from the region's tax inspectorates for the recovery of taxes and fees from debtors into the state revenue at the expense of their property. In total, 3,649 applications were received by the region's economic court in the first quarter of 2010, of which 26% were applications in order proceedings, 62% were in order proceedings, 10% were in administrative proceedings, and 0.9% were applications for economic insolvency (bankruptcy). -0-