THE SUPREME COURT OF RUSSIA DID NOT ALLOW THE WITHDRAWAL OF THE DEBTOR'S ASSETS IN BANKRUPTCY

The Supreme Court of Russia on the initiative of the bankruptcy manager has recently considered a case challenging a chain of transactions that led to the withdrawal of the only liquid property of the debtor. At the same time, the courts of the lower instances rejected the claims, haven’t found the interest of the parties or inequality of the consideration.

The essence of the legal relationship between the debtor and a certain individual was that they signed a purchase and sale agreement for several real estate objects. After that, the ownership was registered, and the payment had to be made a little later. Without waiting for the buyer‘s deadline to fulfill his obligations, the parties signed an additional agreement, according to which the buyer had to repay the seller’s bank loan.

This fact, probably, confused the judges of the lower instances, as the payment had already been made, which meant that it was impossible to talk about the inequality of the counter grant. At the same time, the change of owners for the debtor's real estate on the individual is not over.

After the transaction, the buyer's spouse, in the process of dividing the jointly acquired property, took the property and contributed it as the authorized capital to the company. At this stage, the manager found the property, and decided to challenge the deal, but was not supported by the judges.

As for the highest court, its board, having examined the case materials in detail, came to the opposite conclusion.

According to the judges of the Supreme Court, the parties to the concluded transactions were interconnected and could well pursue a common interest, in particular, the withdrawal of the debtor's assets just before the bankruptcy. Having established a connection between the participants in legal relations, and also recalling that the price of real estate was still different from the market price, the Supreme Court of Russia canceled the decisions made by the lower courts (ruling in case No. 308-ES18-14832 (3.4) of December 28, 2020).