The Position of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on the Issue of Including Intra-Group Debt in the Register of Creditors’ Claims Through the Conclusion of Suretyship Agreements

The article considers the approach of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation to the unlawful circumvention of the order of satisfaction of creditors’ claims by a controlling person in order to increase the order of satisfaction of their claims, as well as subsequently establishing control over bankruptcy.The Judicial Collegium for Economic Disputes of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation noted that when evaluating a security transaction for validity and, accordingly, economic feasibility in its conclusion, the courts had to proceed from the fact that, as a general rule, in case of an intra-group loan, money remains under the control of a group of persons, due to which, with from the point of view of normal civil turnover, there is no need to use mechanisms that additionally guarantee the return of funding. In the conditions of affiliation of the lender, borrower and guarantor with each other, in a bankruptcy case, these persons are obliged to disclose reasonable economic motives for making a security transaction, in particular, issuing a surety.