THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF THE BANKRUPT "REPUBLIC" WENT FOR 4.8 MILLION

The bankruptcy process of the Republic company, which operated a chain of bookstores of the same name in Russia, allowed individual entrepreneur Dmitry Aliyev to acquire a number of interesting assets. We are talking about intellectual rights to means of individualization and objects of copyright.

According to Kommersant, the lot includes a website, a mobile application and the company's brands (trademarks and design concept for the design of branded packages). All of them were purchased at auction for 4.8 million rubles at an initial price of 53.5 million rubles.

In the results of the auction, Aliev is indicated as an individual. Recently, his main activity as an individual entrepreneur was construction. Given this, the experts of the publication suggested that the businessman could act as an intermediary.

Attempts to return the assets of a bankrupt company under the control of the former owner is a fairly popular practice. In this case, their buyer at the auction becomes a third person who is not formally associated with the former beneficiaries of the organization. Sometimes the alienation of assets occurs before bankruptcy, but often property rights are acquired directly at auction already in the process of bankruptcy proceedings.

The owners of the debtor bear the risks of subsidiary liability, therefore, the acquisition of assets by a person affiliated with them in any way may lead to subsequent contesting of the results of the transaction. If the creditors of a bankrupt company are interested in selling property at the highest possible price, then the goal for the intermediary is to buy them at the lowest cost.

It is known that earlier Aliyev was the head of the Ultra company. The company conducted a wholesale business in the software market and sold computer equipment. Also, the sole proprietor was the founder of KPKG "Trust", was the head of the Golden Auto company.

The bankruptcy of the book chain, which occurred in November 2020, led to the fact that all the outlets of the "Republic" were transferred to its partner. Only the Internet site and intellectual property objects put up for auction in February 2023 remained under the management of the company.

Now the role of franchisee is played by the company "ProLife", which is a subsidiary of the company "Intel-Roal". Its assets belong to Igor Deriglazov, who founded the holding company "Meloman". The commercial concession agreement concluded in 2020 continues to be valid. Therefore, the issues of interaction between stores and the new trademark owner are likely to be discussed further.