Ex-Signa Manager Pirolt Offers Creditors a 0.0142 Percent Quota

Pirolt filed the application for the three-year income attachment procedure on July 15, 2026, thereby acting just before an important deadline expired. The background is a regulation introduced in 2021 as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which expired after five years.

Payment Plan and Income Attachment Procedure

Since Pirolt has lost his status as an entrepreneur and is now considered a consumer, this application for debt relief is possible for him. The law stipulates that the income attachment procedure may only be applied for subsidiarily, or as a fallback option.

The former chief financial officer of Signa Prime and Signa Development has applied for a payment plan and, alternatively, for the initiation of a three-year income attachment procedure. First, the insolvency administrator must review the payment plan proposal for appropriateness and feasibility before the insolvency court decides on its admission to a vote.

Only in the event that the creditors do not accept this first proposal in the vote does the subsidiary application automatically take effect as "Plan B," and the three-year income attachment procedure is initiated. In the income attachment procedure, the debtor's income is garnished down to the subsistence minimum, and the money is distributed proportionally among the creditors.

Since July 17, a five-year deadline has applied to this. Up to that cut-off date, consumers in Austria could still apply for a shortened income attachment procedure with a duration of only three years. Anyone who submitted the application later no longer has a chance of debt relief under this model, according to the AKV.

Criminal Law Risks

After three or five years, one is released from the remaining debt. According to the AKV, the initiation of the income attachment procedure could be rejected by the insolvency court if, at the time of the negative payment plan vote, there is a final criminal conviction under Section 156 of the Criminal Code (StGB) (Fraudulent Insolvency), Section 158 StGB (Preference of a Creditor), Section 162 StGB (Frustration of Execution), or Section 292a StGB (False Inventory of Assets).

Fraudulent insolvency under Section 156 StGB concerns the intentional diminishment of creditor satisfaction by concealing, removing, selling, or damaging assets. Not every criminal conviction results in this invalidation of debt relief, but only convictions for fraudulent insolvency under Section 156 StGB. In addition, this payment plan can still be declared null and void by the insolvency court if, within two years after the court's confirmation of the payment plan, a final criminal conviction of the insolvency debtor occurs.

Implications for the Creditors

Investigations are ongoing against Pirolt, for whom the presumption of innocence applies; no final judgment has yet been handed down. Signa founder René Benko was finally convicted of this offense in July 2026.

Should the sum of the ultimately recognized claims turn out to be lower, the actual payout amount corresponding to these 0.0142 percent naturally decreases as well.