Bankruptcy is a powerful and legitimate problem-solving tool – for both debtors and creditors
Services for Debtors
We will assist you in emerging from bankruptcy with minimum losses if the process was initiated by another party.Our professionals will help work out the goals of the bankruptcy and develop a customized strategy based on the business specifics and tasks set by the Client.
Services for Creditors
We will help with debt enforcement and secondary liability claims against the debtor’s controlling parties, challenge the debtor’s transactions, return the transferred assets.
Services for Parties Held Secondary Liable
If you are an executive officer or Chief Accountant, a legal entity participant or founder (or a shareholder), a debtor’s controlling party of other kind, we will help release you from being held secondarily liable for the company’s debts.
How we managed to release the whole team of five directors from liability
One of the creditors of the company that used to operate on the market of oil products sale submitted a bankruptcy petition against the debtor. In the course of the bankruptcy procedure the insolvency officer (court-appointed administrator) found out that the company owned nothing aside from billions in debt. Therefore, he chose to seek for a debt recovery by former management. The plan was to hold not just one director – but the whole team of five directors liable. The insolvency officer presented to the court a due diligence report which did not stand up to any criticism. In fact, the insolvency officer did not have anything that could be considered as evidence and proof of the directors’ culpability. Even the judge suggested that he should present more convincing arguments.The insolvency officer made his homework and prepared a full box of document copies for the next court session. He announced that those were the debtor’s bank statements confirming that questionable, not to say shady, transactions had taken place. According to him, the documents were to prove the directors’ wrongdoings and misconduct. He found it difficult, however, to specify what exactly each director did wrong. To our astonishment, despite the obvious lack of evidence of negligence and wrong or illegal actions on the part of the senior management, the court upheld the claim, found all five directors secondary liable and enforced a debt of several billions rubles. We challenged that decision. The court of appeal took our arguments and evidence into consideration and reversed the decision of the first-instance court.
How we made the greedy pledgee’s life difficult…
A client of ours ran small manufacturing business – a factory put up as collateral to secure a bank loan. At some point (just to mention, it was a time of a global banking crisis when banks were trying to survive in all possible ways – sometimes at the expense of their clients), our client realized that the bank would eventually retain the pledged property.That is when he contacted us and asked for legal advice. What he wanted was the legitimate bankruptcy process last as long as possible and what he definitely did not want was the control of the bank over the factory.Our strategy was to initiate the bankruptcy procedure right after the liquidation of the company. The first step we made was to register the company in the remote region of the country. The idea was to make it more difficult for the greedy bank to take part in the bankruptcy procedure. During the procedure, we used all available legal instruments to make the greedy bank “enjoy” the whole process. We challenged the regulations on the procedure and terms of the auction, dismissed the unfriendly insolvency officer, submitted a petition to invalidate the pledge transaction and requested an injunction prohibiting the insolvency officer or the bank from selling the property, etc. In the meantime, under our careful guidance the bankruptcy procedure lasted over five years. During all that time the factory was functional and generated profit.
How we helped our client to dispose of almost all debts
Our client, let us call him X., was the CEO and a minority shareholder of a real estate developing company. A while ago, one of his customers – a very large and prominent bank (just to mention, the senior officer of the bank is famous for being passionate about technological innovations) – asked X. to borrow money from a contractor to carry out the emergency works. These works were essential for the facility commissioning and completion of the construction. The bank promised to increase the developer fee, which would allow the company to pay off the debt.However, things did not go as planned and agreed. The contractor filed a lawsuit and enforced the debt.X. asked us for legal advice and we explained that he had to submit a bankruptcy petition to a state commercial court otherwise he would be held liable for the company debts.And he did as advised. The process had been under way for nearly two years and when we were about to complete the procedure X. announced that he wanted to terminate the proceedings and resume the developing business. We advised that he should agree to settlement. The settlement agreement provided for a 95% discount from the debt and a one-year payment deferral of the remaining part of the debt (5%). The latter was to be paid in equal quarterly installments.We succeeded in convincing the judge that it was a reasonable, balanced and justified solution and the court approved the settlement. That is how our client regained his business for only 5% of the total indebtedness and disposed of 95% of the company debts.
Benefits of Bankruptcy
Once a woman asked us for legal advice. She was living in quite dramatic circumstances at the time when she contacted us. A single mother she took a loan for her son’s education. In a while, she lost her job and could not pay off the loan. Struggling and trying to make ends meet she had to take several consumer loans, carried some small debts for everyday needs (like mobile phone payments, etc.). Eventually, she found herself drowning in a debt of nearly one million rubles. It happened sometime after the Law 'On Insolvency (Bankruptcy)' was amended and the institution of personal bankruptcy (insolvency) was introduced. The new provisions had barely started being applied in practice, the precedents did not exist yet and only a few personal bankruptcy applications had been filed. We prepared all the necessary documents, managed to initiate a procedure of the property disposal, chose an insolvency officer (a court-appointed administrator. And only a year and a half later she disposed of all debts and was able to get her life back on track.