KEY CHALLENGES IN IDENTIFYING AND IMPROVING WAYS TO RECOVER ASSETS OF LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANIES IN BANKRUPTCY PROCEEDINGS

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of topical issues of identifying and improving legislative and judicial mechanisms for reclaiming property of limited liability companies and reimbursement of its value, respectively, both through bankruptcy proceedings and separate lawsuit proceedings. In the course of studying the current regulatory legal acts of bankruptcy law, including the Bankruptcy Code of Ukraine, the Civil Code of Ukraine, on the one hand, regulating the insolvency institution, and the case law of the Supreme Court, on the other hand, which has developed in the course of practical application of these sources of law in the relations of bankruptcy participants, the author reveals the key difficulties in identifying the assets of debtor companies that are illegally alienated before the initiation of proceedings in economic cases. Among them, the author highlights the problem of ineffective procedural influence by courts upon applications of property managers on the heads of economic entities regarding the transfer of information necessary for conducting an inventory of debtors' property. The author makes a comparative analysis of the provisions of the old bankruptcy law with the current bankruptcy law in practice and identifies qualitative positive changes in the legal mechanism for protecting the rights and legitimate interests, primarily of debtors' creditors, through the establishment of safeguards that make it impossible to unreasonably withdraw assets of limited liability companies. The author notes the current difficulties of returning assets to the debtor's liquidation estate through the application of the legal construction of Article 388 of the Civil Code of Ukraine as a way to protect the interested parties in case of re- alienation by a person to whom the company's assets were sold under an invalid transaction. The author focuses on the need for participants to bankruptcy cases to provide monetary security for the payment of court fees for filing claims for reclamation of debtors' property from third parties, and in the absence of such advance payment, the legislator should provide benefits with regard to the relevant fees. The author summarizes the need for the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court to retreat from its previous conclusions set forth in its resolutions on the comprehensive application of the provisions of civil and bankruptcy law. In order to overcome the above problems and inconsistencies in the law enforcement of competition law, the author proposes to amend the legislative acts regulating insolvency relations.