Supreme Court of Russia supported the position of colleagues on the invalidity of a deed of gift

The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation considered the case on the complaint of the creditor, who challenged the ruling issued by the district court. The document contained a refusal to invalidate the transaction for a deed of gift of the debtor's real estate.  At the same time, the courts of the first and appeal instances satisfied the claim.

The essence of the dispute was that the debtor re-registered the apartment he owned to his own mother two years before the initiation of the insolvency case against him. The courts of the first and appeal instances considered that in such circumstances, the agreement should be recognized as an invalid transaction and the property should be returned to the bankruptcy estate, but this position was not supported by the district court. Its board noted that the debtor did not have the signs of insolvency at the time of the deed of gift.

At the same time, the courts of lower instances established that two years before the initiation of the insolvency case and at the time of signing the agreement, the debtor had already had multimillion-dollar obligations to the bank, but under a surety agreement.

The main borrower was the company controlled by the future bankrupt.

Considering the complaint, the Supreme Court of Russia recalled that the recognition of an agreement on the deed of gift as invalid is possible if three conditions are met:

• causing property damage to creditors;

• the existence of the debtor's purpose for such damage ;

• awareness of the other party to the transaction about the wrongful purpose.

In this case, the signing of an agreement in a situation of insufficiency of the debtor's property, the gratuitousness of the agreement and the conclusion of an agreement in relation to an interested person can also be recognized as circumstances confirming the invalidity of the transaction.

The result of the consideration of the dispute was the cancellation of the decision of the district court and the upholding of the judicial acts issued by the first instance and the instance of appeal (decision No. 304-ES21-9960 of October 28, 2021 in case No. A67-1997 / 2019).