THE SUPREME COURT OF RUSSIA LEGALIZED THE RIGHT OF BANKRUPTCY TRUSTEE TO KNOW THE RELATIVES OF PERSONS CONTROLLING THE DEBTOR

The Supreme Court of Russia considered the complaint of a bankruptcy trustee, whose application for receiving information about the close relatives of the persons controlling the debtor from the registry office was rejected. The position of the courts was that the requested data were not related to the collection of evidence in the debtor's bankruptcy case, and the applicant could not substantiate the opposite.

Subsequently, the economic board did not support this position, pointing out the erroneousness of the conclusions made.

Initially, within the framework of the company's bankruptcy case, the trustee independently applied to the registry office with an application to provide him with information about the close relatives of the two participants in the debtor’s case, but his application was rejected. After that, he applied to court with a request for a judicial claim for this information, but there did not meet with understanding as well.

The position of the Supreme Court of Russia was as follows. The trustee is obliged to take measures to replenish the bankruptcy estate by law. This can be done, inter alia, by identifying the range of transactions, the completion of which caused damage to the property interests of creditors. At the same time, the bankruptcy law considers not only the persons directly controlling the debtor, but also their close relatives as the circle of persons related to the debtor.

Consequently, without information about who exactly is included in this circle, the managers will not be able to conduct a detailed analysis of the financial and economic activities of the debtor and to replenish the bankruptcy estate as much as possible.

Thus, the bankruptcy trustee reasonably asked the court to require the information he needed from the registry office (decision in case No. 307-ES20-22954 of April 29, 2021).