Defending client's rights to provide evidence

A Company that owed our client RUB 18 mln under a cargo carriage contract became bankrupt. The carrier promptly contacted our lawyers. We filed a lawsuit to have those claims included in the register of creditors' claims.

A competing creditor, however, decided to challenge the decision in court. In his claims, he pointed to the invalidity of the transportation. We collected the necessary documents confirming title to the trucks and the provision of the relevant services. The competing creditor submitted a new set of arguments the day before the court hearing. We needed a considerable amount of time to refute them but the court did not allow such time. The court refused to include the claims in the creditors’ register. The task of the lawyers was: to defend the adversarial right and include the claims in the creditors’ register.

The lawyers did the following:

1. Filed a complaint with a court of cassation.

2. Despite the fact that it is not allowed to provide evidence in the cassation, our professionals nevertheless submitted it. It was necessary to convey to the court that we had all the arguments against the creditor's claims and would be able to defend our position in court.

The court of cassation agreed that a huge amount of work had to be done to respond to the arguments of the competing creditor.

The court sent the case back to the court of appeal for reconsideration. The court of cassation agreed that the procedural law and the adversarial principle had been violated. Having re-considered the case, the court of appeal recognized our client's claims as valid and dismissed the appeal of the competing creditor. RUB 18 mln was included in the register of creditors' claims.