The Supreme Court did not approve a hundred million dollar fee for lawyers of the bankrupt company

The Supreme court of the Russian Federation (VS) found inflated the price tag for the services of the law office (AB), hired by the company to challenge tax claims in the run-up to its bankruptcy. Under the terms of the contract with Godovalov LLC (part of the Pharmacy from the Warehouse network), concluded in February 2023, Tax Compliance AB was to receive 100 million rubles. In fact, lawyers transferred 41.18 million rubles, and in December 2023 against the LLC filed a bankruptcy case. The lawyers first won the tax dispute of the company, but after returning the case for a new trial, the tax authorities won.

As part of the bankruptcy of the LLC, its bankruptcy manager decided to challenge the deal with the bureau as unequal. The Moscow Arbitration Court rejected the claim, based on an extrajudicial opinion of a specialist of the Veta expert group, who estimated the market value of the services provided at 43.9 million rubles. However, the appeal noted that the study of the same Veta for 2022 showed the average cost of supporting a tax dispute in three courts by law firms from the same category at 5.68 million rubles. Because of this, the court appointed a forensic examination in another organization, which determined the market value of legal services at 6.36 million rubles, and attributed the remainder to the “success fee”. As a result, the appeal recovered from the bureau an overpayment of 34.8 million rubles.

Later, the district cassation overturned this decision, recognizing the forensic examination as inadmissible evidence due to improper warning of the expert about criminal liability for giving a knowingly false conclusion. In addition, according to the cassation, the expert used outdated data. On the complaint of the manager, the dispute was transferred to the Economic College of the Supreme Court. The board considered it sufficient that the expert on the first page of the conclusion signed that he was warned about criminal liability. The use of Veta data for 2022, the Armed Forces also considered justified, since the contract with AB was concluded in early 2023. As a result, the board supported the decision of the appeal to recover 34.8 million rubles from Tax Compliance to the bankruptcy mass of the bankrupt enterprise.

In more detail – in the material “Kommersant” “The question of non-advocate price”.

Jan Nazarenko