DISTRICT COURT NAMED A PERSON RESPONSIBLE FOR SAFETY OF THE DEBTOR’S DOCUMENTS

The district court has recently considered a case on the application of the bankruptcy manager for coercion to transfer the debtor's documentation to him. Usually the head of the bankrupt company acts as the defendant in such cases, but in the case under consideration, the situation was different.

The manager turned his claims to the liquidator of the organization, to which the head of the debtor had transferred part of the documents for safekeeping a few years earlier. After that, the company obliged to keep the documentation was excluded from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, and the fate of the documents remained unknown.

The blame was put to the liquidated company by the head of the bankrupt, who have submitted an inventory of the transferred documents, indicating that they remained there.

Then the manager demanded the return of the documentation through the court, but the liquidator repeatedly indicated that he had nothing to do with the company's activities, that he did not know where the requested documentation was and still would not be able to execute the judicial act.

At the same time, the court of first instance satisfied the manager's claim, as well as the court of appeal.

However, the district court took the situation differently, having recalled that the responsibility for the safety of the debtor's documentation still was his head’s responsibility, which is why he was obliged to prove the impossibility of presenting it to the manager.

As a result, the case will now be reconsidered in the court of first instance (decision in case No. F09-8491 / 20 of February 11, 2021).