Media & Resources
AT successfully defended the interests of a Swiss national in a Russian court in a dispute worth over $1 million
DATE: September 20, 2021 | AUTHOR: AT
On September 16, 2021 the Moscow City Court reversed the decision of the court of first instance and dismissed the claim of the plaintiff (who was the ex-wife of our client’s common-law husband) for recovery of a debt under the loan agreement and interest for use of money in the amount exceeding $1 m.
AT’s position was that the money was not a loan because the loan agreement submitted in the case file was falsified evidence – our client’s signature was forged. In addition, the bank order does not confirm the existence of a loan relationship between the parties, and is only a bank document issued by the plaintiff unilaterally, the content of which our client could not affect.
The amount of money received was material assistance from our client’s civilian spouse, who used the account of the plaintiff (former spouse) as a transit account. Therefore, on the basis of paragraph 4 of Art. 1109 of the Civil Code, these funds should not have been returned.
The plaintiff brought suit 3 years after the date the money was transferred, and during that time she never acted as a reasonable and prudent creditor. In the claim for refunding the money sent to our creditor she qualified the given transfer as an “illegal banking operation”.
The project was led by: Sergey Alimirzoev, Maxim Trofimov, Ilya Aleschev, Alena Kosina.