Court refused to reopen a RUB 3.94 million recovery judgment against the debtor

Our client is the entrepreneur Aleksey Boykov.

The dispute arose from a contract for transport services and freight carriage between sole proprietor Aleksey Boykov (ИП Бойков Алексей Васильевич) and Bury LLC (ООО «Бурый»).

By a decision of the Commercial Court of the Krasnoyarsk Territory (Арбитражный суд Красноярского края) of 5 October 2022, Boykov’s claims were granted.

RUB 2,016,029.60

principal debt

RUB 1,880,874.20

penalty

RUB 41,406

court fee

RUB 3,938,309.80 — the total amount awarded by the court

On 12 July 2024 ООО «Бурый» applied to the Commercial Court of the Krasnoyarsk Territory for a review of the decision of 5 October 2022 on newly discovered circumstances.

The company asked to set aside the previous decision and reconsider ИП Бойков’s claims for recovery of the debt.

ООО «Бурый» relied on the results of another commercial court dispute with a municipal customer.

In that case, a construction expert assessment was carried out, which examined the volume of work actually performed under municipal contracts.

On the basis of the results of that proceedings, ООО «Бурый» concluded that ИП Бойков’s transport services allegedly could not have been provided in the volume previously claimed.

It was this conclusion that the debtor tried to present as a ground for reopening the recovery judgment.

The matter was not about a new independent claim against Boykov.

ООО «Бурый» sought to set aside an already existing judgment by which RUB 3,938,309.80 had been awarded in favor of the client.

If the grounds for the review had been accepted by the court, the dispute could have been reconsidered.

The task was therefore to show that the circumstances cited by the debtor do not meet the statutory requirements for newly discovered circumstances and do not allow the exceptional review procedure to be used as a rehearing of an already resolved dispute.

When the application was considered, ИП Бойков presented primary documents confirming the provision of the services:

• contracts and applications;
• acts;
• a calculation table;
• documents on the provision of services by the entrepreneur’s own resources;
• documents on the involvement of third parties.

Boykov’s representative at the court hearing was lawyer Viktor Erofeev of Konsultant Law Firm.

ООО «Бурый» proceeded from the assumption that if part of the work under the municipal contract was not performed, then ИП Бойков’s services also could not have been provided in the volume previously presented for payment.

The court did not agree with such a transfer of conclusions.

The ruling expressly states: the conclusion of ООО «Бурый» is conjectural in nature and not documented.

The construction expert assessment was carried out in another commercial court dispute.

It examined the performance of municipal contracts by ООО «Бурый».

The validity of the transport services contract between ИП Бойков and ООО «Бурый» was not examined by that expert assessment.

Boykov himself was not a party to the municipal contracts and did not perform obligations under them.

The court separately noted that the defendant, as a party to the contract, obviously should have been aware of whether the services were provided within the disputed relations.

This was of fundamental importance for assessing the argument that the relevant circumstances allegedly became known to the debtor only later.

The court explained the fundamental difference between newly discovered circumstances and new evidence.

If, after the completion of the case, additional evidence appears relating to circumstances that were already examined by the court, this by itself is not a ground for reopening the court act on newly discovered circumstances.

Such a procedure applies in exceptional cases and is not intended for rehearing an already resolved dispute.

By the 2022 decision, RUB 3,938,309.80 was awarded in favor of Boykov.

But a court act on recovery and the actual receipt of the whole amount are different things.

The ruling of 1 November 2024 cites a certificate of the bailiff service, according to which, as of 9 January 2024, the balance of the debt amounted to RUB 2,759,706.02.

There is no documentary confirmation that the whole awarded amount was actually received.

Obtaining a court decision is not always the last stage of a dispute.

The losing party may try to achieve its review, use circumstances from other proceedings or present new evidence as newly discovered circumstances.

In such a situation, the lawyer’s task changes: it is no longer necessary to prove the original claim from scratch, but to preserve the achieved court result and show the absence of the statutory grounds for its review.

In the case of ИП Бойков, it was precisely such an attempt by ООО «Бурый» that was rejected by the court.

The interests of ИП Бойков when the application for review was considered were represented by lawyer Viktor Erofeev of Konsultant Law Firm.

He took part in the court hearing under a power of attorney from the client.

This dispute is connected with another stage of the work on the debt of ООО «Бурый».

After bankruptcy proceedings were opened, ИП Бойков’s claim for RUB 3,938,309.80 was admitted in the third priority of the register of creditors’ claims.

This stage is reflected in a separate case of Konsultant Law Firm.