29.06.2017 Sergei Bakeshin, Senior Associate

Sergei Bakeshin has provided his comments to DP on the approval by a court of the offshore debts of St Petersburg companies

On 28 July, Delovoy Peterburg, a business newspaper, published an article titled ‘Freight with a duplicate’, which analysed the conduct of lawyers in a matter for offshore debts of St Petersburg companies for 3.7 billion roubles, that had been approved by a court.

The Seychelles office of DKGroup Ltd made a claim against OOO Klassika in the Arbitration Court of St Petersburg and Leningrad region to recover 500,000 rouble debt in a shipping contract.  At the first hearing, the offshore company increased its claim to over 1 billion roubles, which the defendant accepted and the parties concluded a settlement which the court approved.  Shortly after this matter, the claimant and the defendant changed: the creditor became a Czech company, Embulpure s.r.o. and the debtor, OOO Kamelit SPB.  

After which, the claimant and the defendant again changed:  Embulpure passed the debt to Estonian company FelixEst OU and Kamelit SPB to OOO Alliance Logistic and the new legal successors initiated proceedings to obtain an duplicate court order.

Опрошенные ДП эксперты сошлись на том, что в данном случае была разыграна классическая схема вывода денег за рубеж по судебному акту. Непонятным остался только вопрос ходатайства о выдаче дубликата исполнительного листа.

The experts interviewed by DP agreed that on the facts in this case it was a classic scheme for transferring money abroad using a court decision. The only question that remained unclear was the application for a duplicate of the court order.

Sergei Bakeshin commented on the situation that: “It is possible that the case was for one client, who needed to transfer funds from a number of formally unconnected companies.  And maybe a kind of package service: registration of a company whose main asset is a debt to an offshore company for 2 billion roubles. After which, the company can be offered to anyone who might wish to transfer money overseas; to buy a company to which it can be indebted to.  After which the transaction is completed in two contracts: an assignment and a debt transfer.  And then a new client is found and the process is repeated.”

For more information (in Russian) see dp.ru.