How a ban on seizure of accounts of combatants will help debtors

On November 30, United Russia submitted amendments to the State Duma on a ban on the seizure of funds on the accounts of participants in a special military operation, informed Secretary of the General Council of the Party, First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Andrei Turchak. Despite the fact that banks and bailiffs are prohibited from writing off the funds of participants in a special operation as part of enforcement proceedings, there remains an opportunity that allows them to arrest their accounts, he noted. “The amendments that ER has prepared for the second reading of our own bill on the suspension of legal proceedings against mobilized and volunteers eliminate this possibility, including with respect to the accounts of individual entrepreneurs,” Turchak said.

The bill to which the amendments are proposed suggests amendments to the Arbitration Procedure Code (APC) and the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, the Code of Administrative Procedure of the Russian Federation (CAS) and the Law on Enforcement Proceedings. The document proposes to include in the list of grounds for the suspension of legal proceedings and enforcement proceedings cases of participation in hostilities, in the conduct of a counter-terrorist operation. Its authors, in addition to Turchak, were senators Andrei Klishas, ​​Irina Rukavshnikova, as well as State Duma deputies Pavel Krasheninnikov, Vasily Piskarev, Dmitry Vyatkin, Anna Kuznetsova, Tatyana Butskaya and Igor Antropenko (all United Russia).

The norms stipulated by the bill will be applied after a corresponding statement from the serviceman, Antropenko told Vedomosti. “A serviceman can exercise his will by contacting the FSSP. This can be done at mobilization points, military registration and enlistment offices. I do not rule out that the military personnel stationed in the NVO zone do not have the opportunity to do this personally [обратиться к приставам]. In that case, you can [будет] send a statement through the commanders of their military units,” the deputy noted.

Arrest of accounts is a fairly popular sanction that creditors resort to, since it is easy to perform and effective if you know in which bank the debtor has or should receive funds, says Nikita, head of the Moscow City Bar Association of the De Jure Lawyers Bureau Filippov. “Undoubtedly, the establishment of such a ban for banks will simplify the life of the mobilized and other participants in the special operation,” he said.

MAYS Partners Managing Partner Roman Nikolaev explained that the rule prohibiting the seizure of funds on mobilized accounts is likely to affect the interests of banks that “may face the problem of debt collection, for example, from guarantors.” At the same time, he stressed that “any person whose rights and legitimate interests have been violated by the debtor can act in the status of a creditor.” “All these persons are deprived for an indefinite period of a very effective way to protect violated rights <…> This state of affairs can lead to abuse by unscrupulous debtors,” Nikolaev believes.

According to Enforce Law Company lawyer Vladimir Vorobyov, the ban on the seizure of funds has become a logical continuation of the state’s line of protecting the interests of the mobilized. “Before, banks could seize money in accounts, but they could not collect it. Debtors, on the other hand, had funds that they could not use. As a result, the new amendments resolve this gap, helping both debtors and recoverers – some can use the funds, while others are saved from useless work in enforcement proceedings,” he said.

The State Duma adopted the bill on the suspension of judicial and enforcement proceedings against participants in the SVO in the first reading on November 14. The rights of employees of the Ministry of Defense, the Russian Guard, the police, the FSB, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the prosecutor’s office and the Investigative Committee, other federal government agencies, as well as mobilized and volunteers will be equally protected, Klishas noted. At the same time, the law will not be the basis for the suspension of enforcement proceedings on alimony obligations in respect of minor children, as well as on the fulfillment of obligations for compensation for harm in connection with the death of the breadwinner.

As soon as the participant in the special operation is demobilized, legal proceedings or enforcement proceedings will be resumed, lawyer Anton Rudakov pointed out. “The meaning of the bill is to protect the rights of the mobilized, because, while doing your military duty, it is difficult to defend your rights, for example, in the Khabarovsk regional court,” he explained.

The State Duma is discussing new measures to support the mobilized, Svetlana Bessarab (United Russia), a member of the committee on labor, social policy and veterans’ affairs, told Vedomosti. “Participants of the SVO who left the positions of state and municipal service due to mobilization or voluntarily were given a priority right after the completion of mobilization to take positions equivalent to those previously occupied, if during the period of military service the fixed-term contract was terminated due to the expiration of its term,” recalled the deputy.

A similar rule, according to Bessarab, is planned to be extended to citizens who work under fixed-term employment contracts. “New amendments to the Labor Code have already been prepared. If a fixed-term contract is terminated during the mobilization period, after the end of the service for three months, such a citizen has the right to priority employment in similar positions,” the deputy noted.

Due to the fact that the information agenda is now overloaded with a topic related to the SVO, “strengthening and curtsy in this direction” is required, says Alexander Nemtsev, associate professor at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation. “The main task is to make the mobilized think not about problems [у него] at home, in everyday life – loans, other difficulties, but about the performance of combat missions. Everything is being created for this, and a legislative base is being formed for this,” he said.

Support for the families of the mobilized will be the main topic of the meeting of the Council of Legislators of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation in December, wrote “Vedomosti”. This is “the number one issue” for people in the regions, said Svetlana Zhurova, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs (United Russia).

The article was written with the participation of Anna Vergazova