Supreme Court of Russia indicated when it is possible to reclaim the debtor's property from his head

The Economic Board considered the case on the application of a bankruptcy trustee to reclaim the vehicles belonging to the company from the former head of debtor. The courts of three instances took the side of the anti-crisis manager.  However, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation identified the mistake made and sent the dispute for reconsideration.

The trustee’s arguments boiled down to the fact that the vehicles belonged to the debtor, but his head, did not transfer them to the bankruptcy estate, violating the law.  The position of the head was that the vehicles had already been disposed of and were not available. Therefore, there was no speech about any transfer of vehicles.

Considering the justifications of the parties, the judges of three instances summed up that the position of the head of debtor unconvincing, indicating that he had not provided any sufficient evidence of the disposal of vehicles.

In addition, the head of debtor also did not disclose the further fate of the decommissioned equipment.

However, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation disagreed, recalling a number of judicial acts it had already issued on similar disputes.  The Economic Board emphasized that the method of protecting the violated right should be correlated with the nature of the violation committed.

This means that in order for the judge to have the legal opportunity to satisfy the claim of the trustee filed in the case under consideration, he should have no doubt that the property really was in the possession of the head of debtor (decision № 308-ES21-12178 (2) dated 24  December 2021).