PRAGNUM відстояла контроль клієнта над справою про банкрутство боржника

Quite often, starting the debtor’s bankruptcy procedure is the only way to satisfy creditor claims. The thing is a “prudent” debtor normally disposes all liquid assets before insolvency and before its creditors decide to go to court. Bankruptcy procedure is exactly what allows the creditor (and the arbitration manager) to receive the entire set of protection methods aimed at returning the dubiously alienated property of the debtor.

However, that prospect obviously does not meet the interests of the debtor's beneficiary and provokes counteraction. One of the "reliable" ways to prevent the creditor (and the arbitration manager) from returning assets to the liquidation property is to involve "friendly" (to the debtor) creditors in the bankruptcy procedure.

Such creditors declare “fictitious” claims, the size (amount) of which significantly exceeds the claims of the real creditor. Accordingly, the creditor with the prevailing amount of claims in fact rules the bankruptcy procedure. Such “tactics” allows persons associated with the debtor to establish full control over the bankruptcy and to inhibit any initiatives related to the search and return of its assets.

An attempt to implement a similar plan in order to take over the debtor's bankruptcy procedure occurred in a case where PRAGNUM represented the interests of the largest creditor (a leading agricultural machinery dealer). Claims against the debtor totaling 28 million UAH (which was three times the amount of our client's claims!) were made by two creditors who (as it turned out after our “investigation”) had close ties to the debtor and had never carried out the commercial activities that allegedly resulted in multimillion-dollar creditor claims against the debtor.

The evidence collected by PRAGNUM allowed to convince the courts (of all instances) of the unreality of the business transactions and the groundlessness of the "friendly" creditor claims against the debtor. Thus, the fictitious creditors were removed not only from bankruptcy control, but also from any further participation in this procedure in general. Instead, our client remains the largest creditor of the debtor, and its decisions define the course of the bankruptcy procedure.