April 19 Main results of the day

The arbitration court refused to satisfy the debtor’s bankruptcy trustee’s claims for invalidation of the agreement on assignment by the client of the Bureau to the debtor of the right of claim against a legal entity under a previously concluded loan agreement, as well as a purchase and sale agreement for a share in the authorized capital of a legal entity owned by the client of the Bureau in the amount of 20 million rubles.

The Bureau’s lawyers managed to prove that during the disputed period there were no signs of insolvency and insufficiency of property both from the debtor himself and from the legal entity, the right of claim to which was assigned by the Bureau’s client. The court agreed with our position that the client acted in good faith and reasonably and did not cause damage to the interests of the debtor’s creditors.

The client’s interests were represented in court by attorney Viktor Pokormyak and lawyer Alexandra Reznichenko.

The Court of Appeal confirmed the legality of the decision to recognize as not concluded an additional agreement which increased the volume of payments to the counterparty by 47 million rubles compared to the original agreements of the parties. Taking into account the lack of special powers of the signatory of the supplementary agreement, as well as the inconsistency of the conditions set out in the agreement and the lack of proof of the fact of accepting work for a disputed amount, the court did not see any grounds for reviewing the decision of the court of first instance.

The interests of the Principal were represented by Daria Eliseeva, senior lawyer in the commercial dispute resolution practice.

The Moscow Arbitration Court resolved the dispute in favor of the Principal based on the opponents’ application to change the method and procedure for executing a judicial act.

The opponents filed a claim in court to collect receivables from the Principal of the Bureau. By court decision, the receivables were collected. However, after the initiation of enforcement proceedings, the opponents appealed to the court with a request to change the method and procedure for the execution of the judicial act. The opponents’ arguments boiled down to the fact that the Principal is unable to pay the debt, and therefore the debt must be paid by a completely different organization, which is affiliated with the Principal.

However, the court accepted the position of Katan Ruslan, lawyer of the Department for Economic disputes, and Yakov Prisyazhnyuk, Head of the department for economic disputes, regarding the fact that the Legislation does not provide for such a method of changing the execution of a judicial act as replacing the debtor. Collecting a debt from a completely different organization that is affiliated with the debtor violates the rights of this affiliated organization, since legal entities are autonomous and independent subjects of economic activity.

As a result, the Moscow Arbitration Court refused to satisfy the opponents’ application to change the method and procedure for executing the judicial act.