The Supreme Court of Russia banned CEOs of companies from appointing themselves bonuses

The general director of the company will no longer be able to sign decrees on awarding a bonus to himself, this task will become the responsibility of the general meeting of the company’s participants or the board of directors. The corresponding decision was taken by the Supreme Court of Russia, writes Interfax.

“The general director has the right to issue orders on the application of incentive measures in relation to the employees of the company subordinate to him, but not in relation to himself. Otherwise, it would lead to a conflict of interest,” the statement said.

The judicial authority came to the appropriate decision during the consideration of a dispute between Center for New Technologies Plus LLC (CNT Plus, before the reorganization of CNT Parus CJSC) and Alexander Strukov, who was the company’s CEO from May 2017 until the end of 2019 He left his post by agreement of the parties amid the unprofitability of the company. The fact is that the company’s net profit from 2011 to 2016. ranged from 50 million to 101.8 million rubles, and in 2019 the net loss was recorded at the level of 6 million rubles.

At the same time, according to investigators, Strukov received for 2018-2019. bonuses and incentive payments in the amount of about 14.84 million rubles. Moreover, they were paid on the basis of orders issued by him. Later in court, he argued that these payments were agreed with the deputies of the general director and the founders of the company. At that time, they were Boris Lezhava and Andrei Ponomarenko, who owned CNT Plus in equal shares.

After Strukov left the post of general director, the company went to court to recover this amount from him, since, according to the charter of CNT Plus, bonuses to the general director could only be awarded by decision of the employer or the general meeting of the company’s participants. However, the Moscow Arbitration Court refused to recover money from Strukov, and the appellate and cassation courts agreed with this decision. Today, the Supreme Court decided to send the case back for a new trial.