The Moscow Arbitration Court creates a dangerous precedent in the case of the ex-owner of TPO Reserve Semyon Lamdon
Former CEO and co-owner OOO TPO Reserve Semyon Lamdon is forced to go to court to prove the unlawfulness of recovering damages from him in the amount of more than 349 million rubles in the period from 2009 to 2018. The relevant decision was previously made by the Arbitration Court of the city of Moscow. The lawsuit against Lamdon was filed by the new owners of the enterprise.
Semyon Lamdon sent an appeal to the Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeal. Some lawyers have already said that the decision of the first instance could set a dangerous precedent that would allow the general limitation period for arbitration cases to be extended from the current three years to 10 years or more.
Does the statute of limitations apply to everyone?
Semyon Lamdon co-founded the Reserve cooperative in 1987. The company has had its current name since 1995. For a long time, Lamdon held the position of General Director at TPO Reserve. He then made the decision to gradually exit the business. In 2019, he entered into an agreement with Sergey Zaitsev. According to him, Lamdon remained the managing partner of the company. At the same time, he was obliged to pay 1.7 million rubles a month. And Lamdon transferred most of his share in the business to Zaitsev at face value. In addition, Semyon Lamdon retained the right to claim against TPO Reserve for 38.7 million rubles. We are talking about accounts payable, which was formed when the company was unable to fulfill its obligations to Bank Zenit JSC.
At first, Semyon Lamdon regularly received a salary, but a few months later the new owners of the company violated their obligations. In February 2020, Lamdon resigned from the company, but the final settlement was not made with him. After that, he filed a lawsuit with the Presnensky District Court of Moscow. The judge recognized Semyon Lamdon’s claims as legitimate. So, he ordered “TPO “Reserve” to pay the plaintiff the wage arrears. Claims in the amount of 38.7 million rubles were also satisfied.
Despite this, the new owners of TPO Reserve have still not complied with the court decision. Moreover, they themselves went to court with claims against Semyon Lamdon. It turns out that Sergey Zaitsev has already resold the company to Tigran Tsaturyan. He, as well as the general director of TPO Reserve, Dmitry Pruslin, filed claims against Lamdon in the amount of more than 388.7 million rubles. They contested deals made between 2008 and 2019. Judge Elena Fortunatova satisfied most of the plaintiffs’ claims. At the same time, she did not react in any way to the fact that the statute of limitations had already expired. Moreover, the judge noted that the limitation period begins to run first for each new member of the legal entity. This can be used by unscrupulous entrepreneurs, rewriting the property to a new friendly person. Whether the Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeal considers the decision of Judge Fortunatova lawful, time will tell.
