The Supreme Court Clarified the Procedure for Obtaining Funds from the Accounts of a Liquidated Company
In case No. A76‑3964/2023, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation stated that the presence of funds in the bank accounts of a liquidated legal entity does not preclude the possibility for interested persons to obtain them through judicial proceedings. The relevant position was set out in a ruling of the Judicial Chamber for Economic Disputes, by which the judicial acts of the lower courts were set aside.
The dispute arose from a bank’s refusal to release funds remaining in the account of a company after its removal from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. The courts dismissed the claims, referring to the termination of the legal entity’s legal capacity and the impossibility of disposing of its property following liquidation.
The Supreme Court disagreed with this approach, pointing out that the liquidation of a company does not entail the loss of property rights where the property in question continues to exist in fact. Funds in a bank account do not become ownerless and must be distributed in accordance with substantive law grounds.
The Supreme Court emphasized that an interested person is entitled to apply to a court to recover such funds from the bank, and that the mere fact of the company’s liquidation cannot, in itself, serve as grounds for refusing judicial protection.
