The Evolution of Liability Measures Applied in Bankruptcy to Creditors’ Property Rights Violators in Russia

Abstract

One of the tasks the modern law in the field of insolvency of legal entities pursues is to ensure the maximum balance of the rules governing the measures of liability applied to managers, participants and other entities controlling the debtor. In this regard, the author applies historical and comparative method of studying the measures of responsibility applied during the development of domestic legal regulation of insolvency and the critical assessment method that forms the basis for the analysis of the current Russian legislation. The paper carries out a retrospective analysis of the form and degree of fault as an element of the offense that traditionally acted as one of the criteria for choosing the type of insolvency, as well as for imposing the measures of responsibility. A comparative analysis of the norms of the Russian bankrupt legislation in historical retrospect allowed raising problematic issues of the current legislation and making proposals aimed at their resolution. Currently, the rules of the current domestic insolvency legislation provide an equal amount of responsibility for both bad faith (intentional) and unreasonable (careless) actions of entities controlling the debtor. The normative consolidation of measures of responsibility dependent on the form of fault, namely, the separate qualification of intentional and careless offenses, will secure coherent application of the principle of justice. Modern Russian law contains the concepts of “insolvency” and “bankruptcy”, which in some cases creates legal uncertainty. Therefore, it is proposed to delineate these concepts by law, eliminate the term “objective bankruptcy” from the application, and shift its semantic burden to the concept of “insolvency”. Thereby, a separate category of insolvency will be included in the current legislation.