Debt at the expense of the interlocutor – Newspaper Kommersant No. 240 (7441) dated 12/24/2022

The bankruptcy trustee of the mobile operator Danycom disputes transactions with other legal entities of the group of companies of the same name, including a loan for 450 million rubles. from its head structure. The lawsuit alleges that both the borrower and the lender were aware of the operator’s poor financial condition and that the company’s financial statements were misrepresented. Both structures were declared bankrupt. Cancellation of the transaction will later help bring the owners and managers to subsidiary liability, lawyers say.

The bankruptcy trustee of Dany Call LLC (responsible for the work of the Danycom mobile operator) Elena Dobrynina filed a lawsuit with the Arbitration Court of the Krasnodar Territory to invalidate a loan of 450 million rubles issued by the former parent structure of the Danycom group (JSC Denikom), according to Fedresurs data . It follows from the statement that both legal entities with a common CEO Ekaterina Shmyrina knew about the unsatisfactory financial condition of Dani Call at the time of the transaction in 2018. There was no definition in the file of arbitration cases at the time of publication. The bankruptcy trustees “Dani Call” and “Danikom” did not answer “Kommersant”.

In relation to Ekaterina Shmyrina, who used to be a co-owner of Danik, a case is being considered on causing property damage by deceit or breach of trust (Article 165 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), the next session of the Leninsky District Court of Krasnodar is scheduled for January 18.

The loan, which is disputed by the bankruptcy trustee Dani Call, was issued in nine tranches from November 16 to November 22, 2018, the statement says. The terms of the loan agreement are not disclosed, while the application states that the amount of the debt was not returned, and the interest was not paid in full. Ms. Dobrynina also refers to the analysis of the financial condition of Dani Call and notes that the reporting for 2018-2021 was distorted, and the real indicators for 2018 and 2019 are losses (SPARK-Interfax notes net profit for these years in 3.23 million and 126.3 million rubles, respectively).

The bankruptcy trustee “Dani Call” disputes payments under other agreements concluded between Danycom structures, in particular – under a strategic planning agreement in favor of PJSC “Denikomo Group” (12.6 million rubles), for the provision of services by JSC “Denikomo ”(31.6 million rubles), etc. The Arbitration Court of the Krasnodar Territory scheduled their consideration for January 16 and 31.

Svetlana Tarnopolskaya, a partner at Yukov & Partners, confirms that “intra-corporate cash flows are a typical story”, and the motives and goals of such transactions range from “monetless creation of accounting illusions” to “honest attempts to save one holding company from bankruptcy at the expense of another.”

According to Mrs. Tarnopolskaya, “financial effect” in case of challenging the transaction between the two bankrupts is not expected. However, she does not rule out that contesting the loan may help in proving the grounds for bringing the managers and owners of the debtor company to subsidiary liability. Artem Komsyukov, head of the office of Arbitrazh.ru law firm, adds that the fact of concluding suspicious transactions will be an independent fact for this, “if it turns out that Denikom and Denikomo Group are not just affiliated with the debtor, but gave him binding execution of instructions, that is, they controlled.

The business model of MVNO operators with free maintenance, such as Danycom and Atlas, which closed in 2019, initially looked untenable, says TelecomDaily CEO Denis Kuskov: account for the profits of other business segments.

Yuri Litvinenko, Anna Zanina