On 14 September 2020, Thailand Central Bankruptcy Court granted Thai Airways’ petition for business rehabilitation and approved the appointment of seven plan preparers, each nominated by the national airline.
The court order for business rehabilitation, when published in the Royal Gazette, would effectively set in motion Thai Airways’ restructuring of its sizeable debt of THB 332.2 billion (USD 11 billion). Within one month from the date of publication of the court order, all classes of the airline’s creditors must submit an application for the repayment of debt to the Legal Execution Department, regardless of whether or not the underlying debt has become due. Creditors that fail to submit debt repayment applications within the deadline will waive their right to have their debt included under the business rehabilitation plan. Such creditors will also be estopped from bringing any other claims against Thai Airways.
As part of the application for debt repayment, creditors are required to submit supporting evidence of their debt, such as contracts, purchase orders and invoices. Any supporting documents not in the Thai language must be translated into Thai by qualified translators prior to submission. Given the short time period for submission of debt repayment applications, timing is crucial for foreign creditors based outside of Thailand. Foreign creditors would be well advised to plan in advance and obtain legal advice from local counsels.
Within three months from the date of publication of the court order, the appointed plan preparers are required to submit the business rehabilitation plan to the Legal Execution Department. As of 14 September 2020, Thai Airways’ representative indicated that the appointed plan preparers intend to submit the business rehabilitation plan to the court for consideration within the fourth quarter of this year, followed by the presentation of the business rehabilitation plan to the creditors for approval at the beginning of 2021. If all goes according to plan, the court will approve the business rehabilitation plan for implementation within the first quarter of 2021.
We expect the court order for Thai Airways’ business rehabilitation to be published in the Royal Gazette fairly soon.
In connection with the foregoing, we expect to handle a large number of claims against Thai Airways. If you would like our assistance preparing a claim, kindly contact us at aawut@aawut.com If you would like to briefly discuss, please feel free to send an email setting up a time for a call.