The West Siberian Logistics Center was unable to achieve a debt review for more than 600 million of the bankrupt asset of Gazprom – the Energogaz company, which acted as a subgeneral contractor for the Punginskoye UGS facility expansion project in Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug. Appropriate claims were made by the Federal Tax Service, which had previously uncovered the creation of a scheme with the companies controlled by the company Stroyenergomash and Stroyenergokompleks to artificially increase the cost of supplying goods, which ultimately led to a decrease in budget revenues. During the dispute, it was pointed out that part of the debt, apparently, was repaid as part of the criminal case initiated against the ex-director of Energogaz, but the court did not appreciate these arguments. Now market participants are waiting for decisions on subsidiary liability, to which, in particular, they are trying to attract the assets of Gazprom, Alexander Karabanov and Dmitry Doev, who later headed the VIS group of his “old comrade” Igor Snegurov. Meanwhile, they are also trying to force the group itself to answer for billions in debts as part of the bankruptcy of the Ecology-Novosibirsk company. Moreover, the court has already pointed VIS to colossal obligations and responsibility to other creditors.
The Arbitration of the Moscow Region refused to revise, due to newly discovered circumstances, the act according to which the claims of the Interdistrict IFTS of Russia No. 16 for hundreds of millions of rubles were included in the register of creditors of Energogaz LLC.
To clarify, Energogaz is a bankrupt asset of Gazprom, which acted as a subgeneral contractor for the expansion project for the Punginskoye UGS facility in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. In 2019, the company was declared financially insolvent, and billions of debts ended up on the register. Moreover, the disputes around Energogaz were accompanied by resonant scandals: starting with creditors’ judgments about deliberate bankruptcy and inspections by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, ending with data on the withdrawal of assets and large tax schemes, which, by the way, had previously resulted in a criminal case.
As the publication reported, at the epicenter of this criminal case was Alexander Dmitrievich Karabanov, the ex-director of Energogaz and the current head of another asset associated with Gazprom, Electrogas. However, he managed to avoid further persecution in connection with the repayment of the debt. It was in connection with the payment of part of the arrears that it was proposed to revise the act, but the court, as indicated above, made a different decision.
It is worth adding that Karabanov, the ex-head of Gazprom Tsentrremont, and now the general director of VIS Group JSC Dmitry Doev, as well as Alexander Psatiya (the ex-director of Nauchny-6 LLC) are currently trying to bring to subsidiary liability under the obligations of Energogaz. Its size is likely to depend significantly on the transaction for the sale of 100% in the authorized capital of Nauchny-6 LLC. The next meeting of the committee of creditors, at which it is planned to approve the regulation on the procedure, terms, conditions and initial price for the sale of the share, is scheduled for this week. Earlier, Pravda UrFO had already reported on the dubious manipulations of the Gazprom asset related to real estate, and attempts to sell Nauchny-6, in particular, for 1.8 billion rubles.
Speaking about these and other conflicts, market participants repeatedly mention the name of Dmitry Doev, whose family partner, for example, is Alexander Karabanov. In this regard, in particular, the emphasis is on the current conflicts of the VIS group. One of them, which was maximally disclosed in the public plane, is the bankruptcy of Ecology-Novosibirsk LLC, which previously had the status of a waste management operator.
According to the publication, in January it became known that the Main Directorate of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Novosibirsk Region opened a criminal case under Part 7 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Fraud” related to the activities of the VIS asset. Now the court is considering an application to bring the following controlling persons to subsidiary liability for the obligations of Ecology-Novosibirsk: EcoTrans-N LLC, KPF LLC, PF VIS LLC and VIS Group JSC. Moreover, the arbitration had previously taken provisional measures in the form of seizure of real estate in the amount of 880 million of these companies. They tried to challenge the relevant measure, but were refused.
“Thus, the creditors and the bankruptcy trustee believe that the total amount of obligations (current and registered) of Ecology-Novosibirsk <…>, which can be included in the amount of subsidiary liability, is 1,565,665,435.46 rubles. The defendants are credited. According to the statement <...>, the amount of loans attracted by the VIS group amounted to 102 billion rubles. The application <…> indicates that only “PF “VIS” has real estate out of all the defendants. At the same time, PF VIS, according to the explanations to its statements for 2022 <...>, issued guarantees, guarantees and pledges for other enterprises of the VIS group in the amount of 91,576,398,000 rubles. <...> That is, the only defendant with real assets is liable with all his property to all creditors of the VIS group. This creates an obvious risk that the creditors of Ecology-Novosibirsk may not receive satisfaction of their claims if the ruling on the adoption of interim measures is canceled, ”the dispute materials say.
