On the one hand, the offset system in bankruptcy law exempts the parties from their actual obligations, facilitates the parties and saves the performance cost; On the other hand, when the property status of the party who is in debt with each other deteriorates and cannot perform the debt, it plays the role of guaranteeing the debt through offset. If one party goes bankrupt and the other party fully performs its obligations, the delivered property will be distributed among creditors as bankruptcy property, and its uncollected creditor's rights will be paid off by the bankruptcy property together with other creditor's rights, which is obviously unfair to the other party. Through offset, the creditor's rights of both parties can be satisfied quickly.
For example, creditor A owes the bankrupt enterprise 6,543,800 yuan, and at the same time, A owns the bankrupt creditor's rights 6,543,800 yuan. If Party A exercises the right of set-off, the debts owed by Party A to the bankrupt enterprise and the creditor's rights to the bankrupt enterprise are zero, and the relationship between creditor's rights and debts is eliminated.
If Party A fails to exercise the right of set-off, Party A shall first pay 6,543,800 yuan to the bankrupt enterprise and incorporate it into the bankrupt property. When the bankrupt enterprise distributes the property, it is assumed that the repayment rate is 50%, which means that each creditor can only get 50% of his own creditor's rights. Then Party A can only get100× 50% = 500,000 yuan. It can be seen that Party A paid 1 10,000 yuan to the bankrupt enterprise, and the final bankruptcy claim was only 500,000 yuan. It can be seen that not exercising the right of set-off in bankruptcy will lead to the bankruptcy creditor's rights not being fully paid off, so exercising the right of set-off according to law is more conducive to safeguarding the interests of creditors.
According to the provisions of the bankruptcy law, before the bankruptcy application is accepted, if the creditor has debts to the debtor, he may claim compensation from the administrator. Therefore, the creditor needs to meet two conditions when exercising the right of set-off:
(1) Creditors and bankrupts bear debts and enjoy creditor's rights.
The basis of offset is that both parties bear debts and enjoy creditor's rights. Only debt without creditor's rights or only creditor's rights without debt will not be offset. This mutual debt, whether it has reached the repayment period or not, and whether the subject matter and payment type of the debt are the same, will not affect the creditor's claim for offset in the bankruptcy liquidation procedure.
(2) Creditors' debts to the bankrupt arise before the bankruptcy case is filed.
Creditors can claim to offset their debts to the bankrupt before the bankruptcy application, which not only facilitates the parties, saves the performance cost, but also helps to protect the legitimate rights and interests of creditors. After the bankruptcy application is accepted, if the creditors offset the debts of the bankrupt, it will narrow the scope of the bankruptcy property, which is unfavorable to other creditors. Therefore, the creditor's right to offset the bankrupt's debts must be put forward before the bankruptcy case is filed.