The Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation adopted Resolution No. 40 of December 17, 2024, in which it clarified some issues related to the amendments made to the Federal Law "On Insolvency (Bankruptcy)" in May of this year.
The Resolution contains 65 points. Some of these points apply retrospectively, that is, they will be applied to bankruptcy cases that are already being considered by arbitration courts.
The main provisions of the Resolution concern the clarification of the rules for applying increased thresholds for debt required by creditors to initiate bankruptcy proceedings for legal entities. Let us recall that the May amendments to the legislation provided, in particular, for an increase from 300 thousand rubles to 2 million rubles in the amount of creditors' claims, which, as a general rule, is required to initiate bankruptcy proceedings for a legal entity. This is one of the provisions of the resolution that will have retroactive effect: if at the time of the adoption of the resolution there is a case in proceedings where the amount of debt of a legal entity is less than 2 million, the arbitration court is obliged to terminate the bankruptcy case against this legal entity.
It was separately explained to the courts that bankruptcy proceedings should be terminated if the debtor presented evidence that his financial difficulties are temporary.
The resolution also contains a number of provisions of a procedural and legal nature. For example, it was determined in which cases arbitration courts should apply the documentary procedure and consider certain applications and issues within the framework of a bankruptcy case without the appearance of the parties: disputes on succession, applications for extension of the terms of bankruptcy proceedings and external management, petitions for the retrieval of documents.
Of the other "procedural" features, it should also be noted that an application for inclusion in the register of claims is now submitted only electronically.
The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation also explained to arbitration courts that they have the right to use analytical resources to verify the validity of creditors' claims, while claims based on court decisions that have entered into legal force must be included in the register without verification.
A new jurisdiction has also been established: all judicial acts provided for by law and not provided for by the Arbitration Procedural Code of the Russian Federation are now initially appealed to the arbitration court of appeal, then to the arbitration court of cassation, and exceptions to this rule are named in the law. At the same time, the issue of appealing acts provided for by the Arbitration Procedural Code of the Russian Federation is resolved according to the general rules of procedural legislation.
The law firm "Nadmitov, Ivanov and Partners" provides comprehensive legal support for bankruptcy procedures and provides services for representing clients in Russian and international courts and arbitrations.
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