Commentary by Mikhail Gusev on Pravo.Ru
On September 10, the Supreme Court considered the cassation appeal in case No. A07-1213/2016, which examined the issue of the rules for indexing debt when bankruptcy is introduced: whether it is replaced by moratorium interest and within what time frame such an application can be filed.
The circumstances of the case are as follows. A consulting firm collected more than 49 million rubles of debt from a company under Legal Services Agreement and received a writ of execution. The debtor did not comply with the court decision, and was declared bankrupt in 2022. Two years later, the creditor went to court to index the awarded amounts from the moment the decision came into force until the introduction of the bankruptcy procedure.
The Arbitration Court of the Republic of Bashkortostan refused:
- the creditor's losses in bankruptcy are compensated by moratorium interest;
- the appeal period expired in August 2023, since it was calculated from the moment when the debtor could actually execute the decision, not from the date of bankruptcy.
The appeal and cassation courts, on the contrary, supported the creditor's position and considered that the application for indexation was filed on time - within a year after the execution of the judicial act. The debtor decided to appeal the judicial acts to the Supreme Court, insisting that the first instance correctly determined that the creditor missed the deadline for the appeal.
Mikhail Gusev, Head of Dispute Resolution Practice at Infralex, attorney, explained that the main problem arises from two contradictory approaches of the courts to calculating the limitation period for the creditor's application for indexation.
“The courts of appeal and cassation proceeded from the fact that the general rule applies - a one-year period, which is calculated from the moment the debtor executes the decision,” Mikhail explained.