Sergei Bakeshin has commented for RBC on a bankruptcy case initiated after the death of a debtor

Sberbank filed for the bankruptcy of a St Petersburg entrepreneur Ivan Kara, who died in 2018. The businessman owned a 51% stake in the Pulkovsky agricultural holding, which the bank also began to bankrupt in early 2020 in connection with a total loan of 255.7 million roubles. After the death of Ivan Kara, a cross-ownership scheme was applied to the stake, and Sberbank hopes to recover more than 63 million roubles in the bankruptcy case.

The Head of the Dispute Resolution and Insolvency practice at Maxima Legal, Sergei Bakeshin, explained to RBC Petersburg that, perhaps, Ivan Kara was a guarantor of the obligations of his companies to Sberbank.

According to Sergei, cases of bankruptcy involving deceased are relatively rare, although there are no accurate statistics on case numbers. Sergei explained that “the federal law provides for the possibility of initiating bankruptcy proceedings against an individual after his/her death. In such a situation, property that constitutes the individual’s estate is included in the proceedings.”

“If the estate has been divided between its heirs, then each of them will be responsible for the debts of the testator, limited to the value of the property transferred to him/her. If the value of the claim exceeds the value of the inheritance, then it can be a reasonable decision to refuse to accept the inheritance,” said Sergei Bakeshin.

To read the full article (in Russian), please see the RBC website >>>