The court’s decision may be contested in the Court of Appeals within a period of ten days.
The founders of the center, i.e. the Ministries of Economy and Education, asked the court to open bankruptcy proceedings.
The court established that the center had 18.744 million litas (EUR 5.43m) in liabilities, which far exceeded the value of assets on its balance sheet.
“Under such circumstances, Lietuvos Tyrimų Centras is an insolvent company,” the court said.
The center planned to cover its operating costs with the European support funds. However, it failed to get the assistance required and actually had to use a loan from Swedbank to finance its activities. In 2012, it suffered 569,000 litas in losses.
Following the agreement for establishing Lietuvos Tyrimų Centras between the Lithuanian government and IBM in the fall of 2010, it was planned that the research center would be allocated around 40 million litas annually, or 200 million litas over a period of five years, of which around 130 million litas was to be paid to IBM for patenting and advice.
It was planned then that the center and IBM would have equal rights to use scientific research results and that Lithuanian scientists would be able to work at IBM laboratories in Zurich and Haifa.
The Economy Ministry in June 2011 earmarked 39 million litas in EU aid for Lietuvos Tyrimų Centras, but the money was not paid and the company did not carry out any operations. The Lithuanian Business Support Agency in 2011 refused to give the go-ahead for millions of litas worth of payments to the company, which is owned by the two ministries.
