Правовые проблемы управления корпорацией в предбанкротный период

Право. Журнал Высшей школы экономики. 2016. № 4. С. 70–85.

Pirogova E., Zhukova Y.

The article covers peculiarities of legal regulation of the actions of shareholders’ and governance bodies’ of a corporation during the pre-bankruptcy period including restrictions for carrying out of special corporate actions and subsidiary duties imposed on members of governance bodies within this period. Whereas the term “pre-bankruptcy period” is not exactly legal and is frequently used in terms different from signs of insolvency, the authors describe separately legal consequences of anticipation of bankruptcy and  consequences of appearance of formal signs of insolvency and grounds for legal action. The research contains aspects of correlation of corporate and insolvency legislation in order to reveal not sufficient legal regulation of special issues where ambiguity of contents of rights and duties of participants of corporate relations cause risks of adverse effect such as liability or invalidity of a bargain. The article introduces examples of confusion of facts reflecting legal signs of insolvency and those irrelevant to them as a result of insufficient attention to distinction between them in legal acts. The most important problems in this sphere of regulation are the following: the exercising of the right and carrying out of the obligation to file a bankruptcy petition, uncertainty in the issue concerning a proper body responsible for making this decision, the absence of defined terms of filing pf the petition, ambiguity of the grounds for refuse to pay dividends within pre-bankruptcy period and violent construction of the notion “signs of insolvency” for this purpose, unequal protection of the creditors’ rights in case of restriction of shareholders’ rights to demand acquisition of their shares by the corporation. The essential task of the legislator seems to be consideration of the specificity of corporate relations during the pre-bankruptcy period and providing the guarantees of inadmissibility of bearing risks of violent construction of legal provisions by any of participants of these relations.

Keywords: неплатежеспособность, субсидиарная ответственность, предупреждение банкротства, предвидение банкротства, признаки банкротства, заявление о признании должника банкротом, ограничения на выплату дивидендов, выкуп акций по требованию акционеров