It is proposed to expand the possibilities of the out-of-court bankruptcy procedure

Ilya Torosov, First Deputy Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, explained the need for such an expansion during a press conference at Interfax by the ever-increasing demand of the population for this procedure.

As Ilya Torosov recalled, the institution of out-of-court bankruptcy appeared in our country on September 1, 2020: then the corresponding changes in legislation allowed debtors with debts of no more than 500 thousand rubles, who were unable to pay off creditors, to get rid of debts through the MFC. The extent to which this mechanism was in demand by the population can be judged by the rapid growth in the number of Russians who decided to use this procedure: for example, from September to December 2020, 1,795 out-of-court bankruptcy procedures were initiated in the Russian Federation; in 2021 – already 4 thousand 663; in 2022 – 7 thousand 108 (this is an plus of 52.4% compared to the previous year). The number of out-of-court bankruptcies almost doubled in the first 2 months of 2023 (compared to the same period last year).

The regions leading in the number of initiated out-of-court bankruptcy proceedings were (in descending order) the Chelyabinsk, Omsk, Orenburg and Sverdlovsk regions. They are followed by the Krasnodar Territory and St. Petersburg. Moscow, according to this indicator, despite the very large number of residents, did not even enter the top ten.

Alexey Yukhnin, head of the Fedresurs project, cited these statistics during a press conference:

“As a result, from September 1, 2020 to the end of February 2023, out-of-court bankruptcy was initiated in 15,840 cases. It was initiated in relation to citizens with debts of more than 5.22 billion rubles. At the end of February 2023, 10,288 procedures were completed and debts in the amount of 3.59 billion rubles were written off. <…> The average amount of debt for 22% of debtors is less than 200 thousand rubles; 41% – from 200 to 400 thousand rubles; 37% – more than 400 thousand rubles. The average age of the debtor is just over 40 years old.”

At the same time, as it became clear two years later, the existing mechanism does not cover the part of the population that is in dire need of it. Therefore, now the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation has developed a bill to improve the out-of-court bankruptcy procedure. It proposes to make this procedure available to pensioners and other citizens whose only income is various social benefits and there is no property that can be recovered (with the exception of the only housing). In addition, it is proposed to double the amount of debt that can be written off in such a simplified way (from 500 thousand rubles to 1 million). In addition to pensioners and “beneficiaries”, those citizens who, according to Ilya Torosov, “are forever in enforcement proceedings” will also be able to use the out-of-court bankruptcy procedure:

“They will be able to go through this procedure if their executive document has been in force for more than 7 years. <…> In addition, we propose a reduction in the period for a citizen to re-enter the out-of-court bankruptcy procedure: earlier this period was 10 years, now we propose to reduce it to 5 years. That is, every 5 years, a citizen, in principle, can go through this procedure again.”

This bill, according to the First Deputy Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, has already been agreed with other executive authorities and will soon be submitted to the government.

If this bill is adopted by the State Duma and signed by the president, the number of out-of-court bankruptcies of citizens may increase significantly.

Sergei Ishkov.

Moskovskaya Pravda collage