District court outlined how to deal with debt on a promissory note in bankruptcy

The Arbitration Court of the North-Western District considered the complaint of the creditor, whose claim to include the debt into the register of creditors’ claims was rejected by the lower instances .  The disputed debt was based on the issued promissory note, however, the courts considered the fact of the validity of the security to be unproven.  The district court pointed out a number of errors and made a decision to reconsider the submitted application when considering the case.

The promissory note was originally issued to the applicant's father but later was inherited by his son. The courts of the first and appeal instances took the position of unproved existence of the obligation in connection with which the security was issued.

Moreover, according to representatives of justice, there was no economic and legal justification for issuing a bill.

During the re-consideration of the case by the district court, the panel of judges noted that the applicant had an obligation to prove the legality of his ownership of the disputed security. In addition, the courts had to investigate the issue of issuing a bill and transferring rights on it, the existence of obligations by virtue of which the security was issued, and the economic feasibility of issuing.

It is worth noting that the court of the first instance requested information on the crediting of funds to the settlement account, confirming the fact of payment of the bill, but the judge did not wait for an answer to the request and issued a decision.

The combination of these circumstances led to the need for a more detailed reconsideration of judicial acts, which, as a result, was demanded by the district court (decision in case № A56-59840 / 2020 of February 22, 2022).