A million Russians have been declared bankrupt since 2015 – Kommersant

According to Fedresurs, the number of bankruptcies of citizens in January-September 2023 continued to grow, although at a slower pace. Thus, the number of Russians declared bankrupt amounted to 249.9 thousand, an increase of 28.8% compared to the same period in 2022 versus an increase of 41.2% a year earlier. During the period of existence of the consumer bankruptcy procedure, from October 2015 to September 2023, 1.003 million people have already become insolvent.

In the vast majority of cases, citizens initiate their own bankruptcy – 96.6% of cases, creditors do this in 3.1% of cases, the remaining 0.4% of applications come from the Federal Tax Service. Among Russian regions the leaders in the number of bankrupts are:

1. Moscow region (12,626 bankruptcies, +34.2%),
2. Moscow (12,160, +30.8%),
3. Krasnodar region (11,843, +24.6%),
4. Sverdlovsk region (9497, +20.1%),
5. Republic of Bashkortostan (8630, +11.9%).

Extrajudicial bankruptcy of citizens continues to be popular. In January-September 2023, multifunctional centers reported 7,964 initiated procedures, which is 69.5% more than in the nine months of 2022. The share of citizens’ applications returned due to errors decreased from 41% in 2022 to 28% in 2023.

Corporate bankruptcies have not yet recovered from last year’s moratorium, which prohibited creditors from filing for bankruptcy against their debtors. According to Fedresurs estimates, over the three quarters of 2023, the number of bankrupt legal entities amounted to 5,071, which is 29.8% less than for the same period in 2022.

At the same time, the number of monitoring procedures introduced against debtor organizations over the nine months of 2023 increased by 28%, to 5,555, which may indicate an upcoming increase in the number of companies declared bankrupt. This may also be signaled by the fact that in 2023, creditors published messages about their intention to bankrupt their legal entity debtors 2.9 times more often; the total number of such notifications amounted to 23,519.

The share of corporate bankruptcies initiated by bankruptcy creditors in January-September 2023 amounted to 77.6% versus 66.8% for the same period in 2022. The Federal Tax Service filed for bankruptcy of companies in 13.4% (from 24.1%), and the debtors themselves declared this in 8.6% of cases. Employees initiated only 0.4% of their employers’ bankruptcy cases.

How the judicial system softens its attitude towards insolvent citizens – in material “Kommersant”.

Anna Zanina