Supreme Court will consider the complaint of a bankruptcy trustee about the amount of damages

Supreme Court will consider the complaint of a bankruptcy trustee about the amount of damages

Supreme Court will consider the complaint of a bankruptcy trustee about the amount of damages
The bankruptcy trustee Tatyana Lobova filed a cassation appeal with the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, trying to challenge the verdicts of lower courts on the recovery of more than 44.46 million rubles from her.  At the same time, the total amount of losses in case No. A33-8678/2016 exceeded 198.8 million rubles.

The reason for the financial problems of Tatyana Lobova was the bankruptcy of the 
“New Wave” company.  She participated in it from October 19, 2016 to August 17, 2017, performing the duties of a bankruptcy trustee.

The bankruptcy process of the organization was started on April 25, 2016.  In October, the company was declared insolvent, and Tatyana Lobova took up her duties.  Ten months later, the bankruptcy trustee had been changed, and all the duties were transferred to Andrey Kirichenko.  When he tried to invalidate several contracts (a pledge agreement and an agreement on foreclosure on a pledged item) concluded in 2015, the court dismissed the claim.  The reason was the omission of the time limit period by Tatyana Lobova.

As a result, Denis Milyakov, who replaced Kirichenko in 2019 as a bankruptcy trustee, was forced to go to court demanding to recover from Lobova the damages caused by her inaction in challenging the transactions.  According to the financial calculations, the bankruptcy estate of the debtor received less than 44.46 million rubles due to her inaction. It was the sum that the courts exacted from Lobova.

However, the bankruptcy trustee was in no hurry to agree with the court decisions.  In her opinion, it war necessary to determine the real amount of damages, but not to recover the amount nominally.  Whether the amount of damages recovered from her was really overestimated is still unclear.
As arguments, Lobova cited the fact that by the time she began her work as a bankruptcy trustee in the case under consideration, the disputed assets had already been transferred to Sberbank in the form of collateral.
Even if she had challenged the transaction, the property would have been returned to the bankruptcy estate with an encumbrance on the part of the secured creditor.  In the case, Lobova believes, the unequal value of the counter provision of equipment, which the bankrupt company transferred in the form of compensation, was not proven.

The final point in this case must now be put by the Judicial Board for Economic Disputes, to which the complaint of Tatyana Lobova was transferred.  Its consideration is scheduled for June 6, 2022.

According to the experts, the judicial practice of recovering multimillion losses due to the inaction of the trustee has already developed in Russia.  However, the cases when the the trustee disputes not only judicial acts (she asks to cancel them), but also the amount of the penalty, are not so common.

26.04.2022