Investigative journalism|Helsinki-halli is heavily in debt and is threatened with bankruptcy. Halliytiö owes more than one hundred thousand euros to the city of Helsinki alone.
Former The Hartwall arena has drifted into a serious financial stalemate. According to HS, Helsinki Halli oy, which manages the sports arena, is insolvent.
According to HS’s information, the stack of overdue payments would already entitle several main creditors to apply for bankruptcy. According to HS’s data, unpaid invoices are estimated to be hundreds of thousands of euros.
Bankruptcy would allow another stalemate to open up. In bankruptcy, the hall and the hall company would cease to be Russian main owners Gennady Timchenko and owned by the Rotenberg family.
Halliytiö a peculiar course of events has led to insolvency.
After Russia attacked Ukraine in the spring and winter of 2022, the EU placed the Russian owners of the hall under sanctions.
However, from last December to June, the EU sanctions package enabled the voluntary sale of the hall. According to HS’s information, one group of investors almost reached a settlement in voluntary transactions in the last moments.
At the same time, in June, according to HS’s information, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs clarified its position on the payment terms for the hall’s invoices. According to HS information, it announced that the third party can no longer pay the bills.
According to HS’s information, the ministry emphasized that only the hall company can now pay the invoices in question.
Until then, the hall’s necessary bills had been paid by so-called third parties. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had granted exemptions from the application, usually for the payment of each bundle of invoices.
Such an exception permit can be obtained for necessary payments, i.e., for example, payments related to property maintenance, land rent, taxation and salaries.
Halli does not make the payments itself, because Finnish banks do not process the company’s payment traffic due to sanctions.
Now some of the hall company’s invoices are already due for collection.
According to HS’s information, the hall company is already facing bankruptcy with payment requests. Any of the creditors could therefore apply for bankruptcy of the hall company.
One of the creditors is the city of Helsinki, which confirms to HS that there is a debt of around 106,000 euros for the ground rent, including late payment interest.
For example, according to HS’s information, Helen’s district heating bill is overdue so that the hall’s district heating has already been turned off.
For HS, the ministry’s sanctions unit denies that it has tightened its line. According to the ministry, the conditions set by the sanctions decree are now the same as they have been since the imposition of sanctions.
“There will always be an exemption consideration, but it is basically the same as until now,” reads the ministry’s response.
Ministerial There is therefore a contradiction between the answer given to HS and the ban on the exemption application in June.
Halliyhtiö is on the brink of bankruptcy, but there is a big but. According to Asiakastieto, which maintains company data, the company’s cash resources are good. In practice, the money has been several million euros.
The company’s insolvency is due to EU sanctions, based on which the company’s cash assets are frozen. According to the sanctions unit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there has never been such a bankruptcy situation before.
What so what happens if and when one of the creditors applies for bankruptcy of the hall company? The case is also previously unknown to the professor emeritus of procedural law Risto School.
“Now the debtor cannot pay due to the actions of the EU and the government. This has not been studied, and it is an open question whether bankruptcy will work in this case,” Koulu says.
According to the School, creditors can try and file for bankruptcy. But the Russian owners can resist the insolvency and the threat of bankruptcy by the fact that the assets have been frozen due to sanctions.
“My position is that neglecting payments has not unequivocally demonstrated the insolvency of the hall company,” Koulu says.
In order to resolve the stalemate, bankruptcy would be a way to get the hall out of Russian ownership. In bankruptcy, the largest creditors would decide on the forced sale of the hall.
According to Koulu, if the Russian owners objected to the bankruptcy proceedings, the matter would possibly go all the way to the Supreme Court. It would take at least a year and a half.
“This is a fundamentally important and unique case,” Koulu says.
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