Until the beginning of 2020, the courts unequivocally refused to satisfy interim measures in disputes involving the subsidiary liability of former owners of bankrupt companies, if the applicant did not provide confirmation “with a high degree of reliability of the facts of the Defendants’ actions aimed at alienating their property, or preparing to commit such actions”.

MCBA “Bureau of Lawyers “De jure” managed to reverse this trend. In the bankruptcy case of Public Stock Company “Time Bank”, the Supreme court of the Russian Federation put an end to it (we have already written about this here).

The Supreme Court, in particular, indicated that the court of the first instance established the fact that the persons controlling the debtor had committed fraud aimed at withdrawing significant amounts of money from the bank by issuing deliberately bad loans to the detriment of the interests of the credit institution’s customers. And in the future, the Defendants did not take any measures to voluntarily compensate for the damage, did not begin to cooperate with the Agency on insurance of contributions, for example, for the disclosure of information that allows us to trace the fate of the Bank’s property. And since the Court found no reason to believe that the Defendants would change their behavior, the Supreme Court overturned the judicial acts of lower courts and issued a decision which satisfied the requirements for interim measures.

The determination of the Judicial Collegium on Economic Disputes of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. 305-ES19-16954 dated 01.09.2020 in the case No. A40-168999 / 2015 became the starting point for the formation of new judicial practice.

On January 24, 2020, the Moscow City Arbitration Court in case No. A40-77625 / 2012-70-199 (bankruptcy of Holding Credit Bank) agreed with the position of MCBA “Bureau of Lawyers “De jure” and took interim measures in the form of seizure of funds and property of persons controlling the debtor for a total amount of almost 8 billion rubles.