October 6 Main results of the day

• By the decision of the Leninsky District Court of Krasnodar, the administrative claim of the seller’s company against the bailiff for declaring illegal the refusal to terminate enforcement proceedings was left without satisfaction.

Earlier, at the request of the principal, enforcement proceedings were initiated on the basis of a ruling on the approval of a settlement agreement issued following a review of his claim with the participation of the Bureau’s lawyers. After that, the seller attempted to terminate the enforcement proceedings with reference to the alleged proper fulfillment of the requirements contained in the enforcement document (the terms of the settlement agreement). However, they chose an inappropriate method of protecting their rights, since in such a case the enforcement proceedings would be subject to completion, not termination.

The complexity of this process lay in the fact that the circumstances established by the court in the framework of this administrative case could directly affect the parallel cases involving the same parties. And this could significantly worsen the position of the Principal and reduce the likelihood of criminal proceedings being initiated against the director of the opposing company for obstructing the execution of a judicial act that has entered into force.

The Bureau’s lawyers managed to convince the court that there were no grounds for either terminating or ending the enforcement proceedings. In this regard, the legality of the decision issued by the bailiff was confirmed during judicial control, including due to the evidence attached in advance to the application for the initiation of enforcement proceedings, which were requested by the court.

The Principal’s interests were represented by Dan Khorolets and Konstantin Tkachenko, lawyers of the economic dispute resolution practice.

• We returned the apartment to the bankruptcy estate and challenged the relatives’ scheme.

Our team defended the interests of the Creditor Client in a complex bankruptcy case and achieved justice by canceling an attempt to withdraw an expensive apartment from foreclosure.

After the debtor’s death, his wife declared that the apartment acquired during the marriage belonged exclusively to her and could not be used to pay off her husband’s debts. We were able to prove that this was a classic asset concealment scheme: the apartment was bought in marriage with common credit funds, the debtor husband was the guarantor for this loan, and payments were made by different family members, which confirm the common family interest to this property.

The court of first instance initially sided with the wife, but we didn’t give up and moved on. Our strategy has ensured a complete victory in the appeal. The property was returned to the bankruptcy estate for sale at auction and to pay with our Client.

The case was handled by Sergey Egorov, Senior lawyer at the bankruptcy practice.

• The First Court of Appeal of General Jurisdiction upheld the decision of the Moscow City Court, which in turn overturned the decision of the authorities to include our client’s property in the list of objects whose tax base is determined as their cadastral value. The Moscow Government’s appeal was denied.

The Court of Appeal took into account:

• in the appeal, the authority pointed to the unlawful definition of the type of activity of the tenants, whose activities (not an office or trade) were not questioned during the inspection of the facility and in the court of first instance;
• when assessing the facility, the government used outdated data on the area (a smaller outdated area led to an increase in the proportion of offices);
• the government’s calculations were erroneous (without taking into account the methodology it had established);
• The building is not a high-income property (shopping/office center) — office and retail tenants occupy less than 20% of the area.

During the hearing of the dispute, the court adjourned twice so that the Government could provide a proper calculation and its justification. However, despite the persistence of the appellate instance, the Government was unable to comply with its demands.

The Client’s interests were represented by Ilsur Zakirov, Senior lawyer at the Dispute resolution practice with government agencies.