680 bankruptcies and 30,000 debt enforcements in 2022

Around 30,000 debt enforcement proceedings were issued against Zug citizens and Zug companies in 2022. This is 1,000 more than in the previous year.

The officials of Zug's debt collection and bankruptcy office (Betreibungs- und Konkursamt) cannot complain about a lack of work: 30,163 Zug citizens and legal entities were served with debt collection orders (Betreibungen) last year – that’s around 1,000 more than in 2021 (29,173). This was reported by the Association of Debt Enforcement and Bankruptcy Officers in Zug. The number of seizures of goods (Pfändungsvollzüge) has decreased, however. There were 8,060 seizures – 13% less than in the previous year.

The debt collection offices in the canton of Zug were able to collect about CHF 57 million from defaulters (compared to CHF 46 million last year) and pay them out to creditors. Nevertheless, loss certificates to around CHF 82.5 million had to be issued.

The press release went on to say that not only debt collection, but also bankruptcies have increased. With 682 cases, there were 173 more bankruptcies in 2022 than in the previous year. The main causes for this were organisational deficiencies. This is the case if the organisation of a company does not comply with the legal provisions with regard to its administration, representation or auditing, or if a company does not have a domicile.

From January 2022, the debt collection offices and the bankruptcy office in Zug have been able to auction off items via their own online auction platform EGant Zug (https://egant-zug.ch/de/). According to the press release, this modern form of auctioning reaches more people, and thereby generates higher proceeds than the more conventional methods. A total of 207 auctions were held with a total of 13,550 bids and proceeds of CHF 169,925 were achieved.