Court declares transformer manufacturer CG bankrupt
Belgium: The enterprise court declared CG Power Systems, the former Pauwels Trafo transformers company, bankrupt. Hundreds of workers lost their jobs.
Belgium: The enterprise court declared CG Power Systems, the former Pauwels Trafo transformers company, bankrupt.
Hundreds of workers lost their jobs, 450 of them at the factory in the Antwerp Stone Road. The trade unions hope that the bankruptcy will lead to a rapid restart.
CG Power Systems Belgium and CG Holdings Belgium were already placed under receivership by the chairman of the enterprise court on 15 January. The prosecution saw sufficient reasons for declaring both companies bankrupt. There are not only large debts in terms of corporate withholding tax, RSZ and VAT, but also, since September, the default judgments have also been piling up, resulting in a total of about 20 custodial hearings
“Factory in standstill” said Kris Van den Berghen, who, together with Elke Van Weerdt, was appointed as provisional administrators three weeks ago. “The board of directors had been inactive for months, production had been dormant for months. We found a factory in a standstill, almost all third-party assets are under seizure.” The administrators ensured that December’s arrears were paid and gave a 35 percent advance on January’s. Van den Berghen also referred to the cause of the problem: the fraud of $690.5 M (625 M euros) at the Indian headquarters. In Mechelen, 450 employees let go, in Charleroi about 70. Mechelen branch also includes factories in Ireland (400 employees) and Indonesia (a few hundred employees) and a sales office in France.
Source: HLN