Yury Yavorsky – Bankrupt.Me-Not. Book of Problems (страница 3)
Question: what happens when he suddenly finds himself facing bankruptcy?
First, an entrepreneur doesn’t want to be known as ‘bankrupt’; he fears it like the plague, actively fending off the very word – publicly and privately.
Second, when businessmen start to sense looming bankruptcy, they begin to spin the centrifuge of problems, seeking advice from everyone and spilling the beans to those who are not supposed to be aware of the impending plight.
do not be confrontational, let alone threatening. Always remember that energy is already being drained, and the next step in business and relationships is total panic. Suppliers stop delivering, banks stop lending, partners refuse to fund joint projects – as a result cash flow is ruptured; your best employees quit, top managers leave, and sometimes even your nearest and dearest shun you. Solution:
PROBLEM 11
Court orders and restrictions, including temporary confiscation or banning property from sale or registration, can quickly follow. Foreign travel may be restricted. The centrifugal force of bankruptcy proceedings squeezes out the entrepreneur and deprives him of the right to manage his property and business. Given: the maelstrom of problems accelerates as bailiffs arrive and litigation begins.
A group of toxic creditors appear with a financial manager and then a crisis manager. Negotiations are out of the question; all they want is to seize and sell all the debtor’s assets. They do not care that in most cases they can get all their money back much faster, and in full, if they allow the company to be kept afloat. Practice shows that bankruptcy takes at least three years (unless it is the bankruptcy of an asset-free guarantor – such proceedings are quick and take about 12 months). Question: what happens next?
Refusing to relinquish ownership and business management rights, not recognizing the substance and legitimacy of creditors’ claims, all while being on the brink of bankruptcy, and sometimes the heat is turned up by the threat of criminal prosecution for actions that can be qualified as contrived and deliberate bankruptcy.
it is crucial to contact experienced lawyers as soon as you realize bankruptcy is imminent. The larger and more complex the business, the more important it is to have a team of lawyers with different skills. One of them might be an excellent negotiator, capable of finding common ground with creditors in all disputes; another is a brilliant theoretician with a keen eye for the attacking party’s Achilles heel; one who is also able to expose the defending party’s weaknesses competently. There is no such thing as an all-in-one lawyer. Solution:
The businessman must get thoroughly immersed in the subject at hand to avoid being thrown out of the process thanks to his own inactivity and stupidity, which only accelerates the centrifugal forces stripping him of his assets. Apart from the bankruptcy law, this immersion must include court practice, and, better yet, the experience of those who have gone through bankruptcy. But you will have to learn as you go, because time will be extremely short. It is critical not to miss the moment when the ‘invaders’, skillful at taking away others’ property and neutralizing the current asset owner’s resistance, cross the border.
If you do not want to trigger the centrifugal force of imminent bankruptcy and associated procedures, do not shout at every corner about your business troubles. Nor try to call to account those you consider culpable for your predicament, as it will only facilitate the centrifugal process that will deprive you of your asset rights and empty your pockets faster than you can sensibly do anything about. It’s not just money, it is also lack thereof that loves silence.
The centrifuge of events should be as far away as possible from the source of power that will initiate the bankruptcy process. Do not be the one to plug it in.
SECTION 6. CONTRIVED BANKRUPTCY
PROBLEM 12
He was quite sure that all his actions were sound and commercially legitimate. He joked with his lawyer while waiting in the corridor and even ventured to give the investigator a cheerful compliment. Given: a friend of mine who was first summoned to appear before an investigator could not have imagined in his wildest dreams that he would face criminal prosecution.
The whole affair seemed cut-and-dried: the businessman had used his line of credit to raise money for buying a regular shipment of tomatoes from Turkey. He had drawn up a contract to that effect and waited for the goods to be delivered. But on their return a dozen juggernauts, loaded with fresh tomatoes, were held up at the border due to political turmoil. Naturally, the tomatoes went bad, yet the bank flatly refused to recognize it as .
It turned out that a bank employee had decided to clamp down on the borrower by submitting a statement to the police about an illegally obtained loan, incriminating the businessman as someone who had tried to embezzle money from the bank. Question: but what does criminal prosecution have to do with all this?
The investigators didn’t care about the businessman’s motives for buying the tomatoes, because they had a statement from the bank on their desk and needed to demonstrate an improved crime detection rate no matter what. The banker intentionally went with extortion because he was trying to earn brownie points at work – the borrowed money had not been returned, and it was not his job to rummage through routine evidence. He reckoned that after some shakedown, the businessman, frantically trying to avoid criminal prosecution, would find the money to pay back the loan one way or another.
You must protect your assets by all means possible and use good lawyers to ensure that there are no undue criminal prosecutions. You should always expect to be reported to the police when bankruptcy proceedings start. An informer can put anything in their police statement. However, it will be up to you to vindicate yourself. Always remember the lady lawyer in Problem 7 who willfully stated in court that the debtor had borrowed a lot more than he actually had. It’s only you who can ensure the charges against you are dropped. Solution:
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