THE POWERS OF THE FAS IN RELATION TO THE BANKRUPTCY OF TRADES ARE LIMITED

The debtor's manager applied to the court to challenge the order of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) issued in connection with the violation of the bidding procedure, which, according to the agency, resulted in the non-admission of the bidder to the auction (case no. A40-263182/22).

The courts of two instances rejected the arguments of the manager, guided by the fact that in order to make a decision to reject a particular application due to the presence of false information in it, the auction organizer must have irrefutable and documentary evidence of this circumstance. The organizer of the auction has not provided such evidence, and therefore, the rejection of the bidder's application is unlawful and does not comply with the requirements of the Bankruptcy Law.

At the same time, the courts proceeded from the fact that the antimonopoly authority has the authority to make the disputed decisions and orders.

The Court of Cassation referred the dispute for a new consideration and noted that the auctions conducted within the framework of bankruptcy proceedings (bankruptcy proceedings, the procedure for the sale of a citizen's property) do not pursue as their main goal the provision and development of competition in certain commodity markets, and arbitrary interference of antimonopoly authorities in their conduct can negatively affect the possibility of timely and maximum satisfaction of creditors' interests from the sale of property, despite the fact that judicial control is carried out over the conduct of these auctions in the framework of a bankruptcy case. Consequently, the implementation of antimonopoly control over auctions conducted in the framework of bankruptcy cases is not unconditional and in each case requires justification by the antimonopoly authority from the point of view of the implementation of the objectives of the Law on Protection of Competition.

In this case, according to the court, the antimonopoly authority controlled the auction for the sale of the debtor's (bankrupt) property, conducted to satisfy the interests of the debtor's creditors interested in the repayment of their property claims.

It does not follow from the case materials that the sale of the property of the specified person could in any way affect the provision of competition and (or) its development in the relevant commodity market. The antimonopoly authority has not provided such evidence.