CLERICAL MISTAKE COST THE DISTRICT COURT A REPEAL OF JUDICIAL ACT

As a rule, when reading the definition of the judicial board of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, we can see one or another violation of substantive or procedural law among the reasons for the reversal of a court ruling.

It may be the non-application of a specific rule of law to the case under consideration, an incorrect or unsystematic interpretation of the law, the application of the wrong law or just a procedural oversight. But sometimes, among the reasons for the annulment of judicial acts, unusual ones appear, for example, in the case of the consideration of a bankruptcy complaint of one company.

In the framework of the bankruptcy case, the arbitration manager challenged the actions of the debtor to transfer a large amount of money in payment for a certain agreement.

The manager considered this as an attempt to withdraw assets before bankruptcy, and challenged the action in court.

The courts of the first, appeal and cassation instances unanimously satisfied the complaint, seeing an insidious motive in the actions of a bankrupt legal entity. Despite the coherence of the position, the Supreme Court decided to cancel the decision of the district court.

The fact is that the essential part (motivating) of the judicial act, which describes the reasons and justifications for the decision made by the judges, was probably not replaced by the circumstances of the case under consideration by mistake. Instead of this, it contained a description of the legal situation of a completely different dispute with other parties and circumstances.  

Unfortunately, such a mistake made a judicial act senseless, and the Supreme Court of Russia had no other option but to cancel it, returning the case for re-consideration to the district court.