The sixteenth Arbitration Appellation Court denied the “Rosenergoatom” concern in a bankruptcy petition of the Dagestan Energy Retail Company (DERC), one of the largest guaranteeing electricity suppliers in the North Caucasus.
According with the opinions of power engineers, such a decision of the court allowed to avoid negative social and economic consequences, including for the DERC, where more than a thousand people work. However, the failed attempt to bankrupt the company is likely to not be the last, since the company is burdened with chronic debts - only last year the total amount of arbitration suits in its relation amounted to 12 billion rubles.
Soslan Kairov, partner of the National Law Company “Mitra”, representing the interests of the company, says that in this case the court had to answer the principle question whether a special procedure should be applied to the guaranteeing supplier.
The court of first instance sided with the creditor (Rosenergoatom), which insisting on a formal approach, on the basis of which the energy sales activity is not natural monopoly. However, the appellate instance actually used the norms of Russian law about the special order of bankruptcy of natural monopoly`s subjects, which enabled the company to avoid observation.
In case of bankruptcy in the conditions of bad employment of population in Dagestan 1047 company`s workers can lose work.
"DERC is a guaranteeing supplier and the only participant on the wholesale electricity market in Dagestan, and, accordingly, has virtually no competitors on the energy sales market.
Therefore, the cornerstone is ensuring the principle of the priority of public interests over the interests of a particular creditor in case of insolvency of the guaranteeing supplier, "explains Soslan Kairov. - Since the introduction of the surveillance to the present day, the new supplier has not appeared, no special status has been given to anyone.
But in conditions when the consumer doesn`t have an alternative power supplier, reliability of power supply must be guaranteed. And if we bankrupt the guaranteeing supplier according with standard procedure, creditors can, for example, decide to suspend business activities, and as a result, there will be chaos in the mutual settlements of all market participants. "
Materials were taken from “Kavpolit”
