MCBA “Bureau of Lawyers” De jure” has put an end to the case of challenging a transaction with luxury real estate in Moscow. The Arbitration Court of the Moscow District, in the second round of consideration, upheld the decision of the appellate court on the refusal to recognize the transaction of the Bureau’s Principal as invalid. The Bureau’s lawyer managed to convince the court of the unreliability of the appraisal examination carried out in the case, the ordinary nature of the transaction to obtain property for the Principal, and the absence of grounds for challenging it. As a result of the work carried out, the Client of the Bureau retained an expensive asset and avoided the need to participate in the bankruptcy procedure of the counterparty to return lost funds.
The interests of the Principal were represented by Nikolay Alekseevich Polusitov, senior lawyer of MCBA “Bureau of Lawyers “De jure.
The Bureau’s lawyers managed to defend their position and invalidate a number of transactions totaling 24 million rubles for the withdrawal and transfer of funds by a person controlling a credit organization in anticipation of the revocation of this organization’s license to carry out banking activities.
One of the members of the management bodies of a bankrupt bank, on the eve of the revocation of the credit institution’s license, repaid his loan ahead of schedule, and literally the very next day this person was approved for a new loan agreement for the same amount, and the funds were withdrawn in cash.
The lawyers defended their position and argued that such banking transactions went beyond the scope of ordinary business activities, were carried out with preference to other creditors of the Bank, and the person by whom such transactions were carried out was controlling in relation to the Bank and held the position of a member of the Board of Directors.
The Defendant, in turn, argued that such banking operations do not go beyond the normal financial and economic turnover in banking activities, and early repayment of the loan and virtually instantaneous registration of a new credit line is only a debt restructuring.
The situation for the Bureau’s lawyers was complicated by the fact that in the framework of the Bank’s bankruptcy case, the court of first instance had already issued refusal judicial acts as part of the consideration of disputes on the recognition of transactions with persons controlling the credit institution.
However, despite this, the Moscow Arbitration Court took into account the arguments of lawyers that this kind of lending to a person controlling the Bank in this case was of a non-market nature and inaccessible to ordinary participants in civil turnover. As a result, transactions in the form of payments for early repayment of a loan, issuance of a new one and subsequent cash withdrawal of funds should also be considered invalid.
The interests of the Bureau’s client (the bankruptcy trustee) were represented in court by lawyer Viktor Pokormyak and trainee lawyer Alexandra Reznichenko.