Responsibility of the Owner of the Unitary Enterprise Property if He Fails to Fulfill the Obligation to Maintain Positive Net Assets

Abstract

The article is devoted to the issue of subsidiary responsibility of the owners of the property of unitary enterprises concerning obligations of the owners of the property of unitary enterprises to the creditors when effective measures are not taken to restore the size of the company's net assets. The relevance of the subject is predetermined, on the one hand, by the lack of clear reference to this ground as the ground for responsibility in the law, and, on the other hand, the acuteness of the problem due to the large number of insolvency procedures (bankruptcies) of unitary enterprises and a significant number of claims from creditors and receivers requiring to hold public entities responsible under subsidiary responsibility. The article analyzes the concept of net assets, the value of this financial indicator inferred by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, the economic and legal essence of Russian unitary enterprises that is taken into account by the European Court of Human Rights in the majority of cases dealt with by the ECHR. A systematic analysis of the legislation regulating the activity of unitary enterprises, as well as bankruptcy legislation, allows to conclude that even now there are the reasons to hold public entities responsible under subsidiary responsibility if they endure unprofitability of enterprises they have created and fail to take measures to maintain the positive value of net assets.