The bankruptcy trustee (BT) has the right to request the necessary information about the debtor, about the persons who are members of the debtor's management bodies, about the controlling persons, about the property belonging to them (including property rights), about the counterparties and about the debtor's obligations from individuals, legal entities, government agencies, management bodies of state extra-budgetary funds of the Russian Federation and local governments, including information constituting official, commercial and banking secrets.

The Bankruptcy Law does not limit the BT in choosing the legal entities obligated to provide information and documents to the BT. The only necessary condition for the submission of documents is the presence in them of information directly related to the debtor, its obligations, controlling persons and property.

According to the meaning of the specified legal norm, the bankruptcy trust has the right to request the documents it needs out of court directly from the debtor's counterparties in order to obtain complete and reliable information for the implementation of the goals and objectives of bankruptcy proceedings – formation of the bankruptcy estate in full and settlements with all creditors.

The information and documents requested by the bankruptcy trustee must be submitted within seven days from the date of receipt of the request free of charge (paragraph 10, clause 1, article 20.3 of the Bankruptcy Law).

The bankruptcy trustee's appeal specifically to the debtor's counterparties is usually due to the availability of information indicating that the debtor has contractual relations with the counterparty, the bankruptcy trustee's doubts about the reality of such relations, the intention to challenge the debtor's transactions, to raise objections regarding the validity of the creditor's demand for inclusion in the register of creditors' claims, the limited number of documents available to the bankruptcy trustee, the impossibility of obtaining documents in another way, the failure to submit documents by the debtor's manager, as well as the fact that the documents are only with the counterparty.

Therefore, in the event of a refusal by the counterparty or failure to submit the documents requested by the bankruptcy trustee, the possibility of reclaiming the bankruptcy trustee is not excluded information and documents from the counterparty by applying to the arbitration court within the framework of the bankruptcy case with an independent claim in accordance with Art. Art. 20.3 and 129 of the Bankruptcy Law (RF Supreme Court Ruling of 09.03.2016 No. 302-ES16-1007 in case No. A58-1247/2014; Resolution of the East Siberian District Arbitration Court of 20.01.2016 No. F02-7166/2015 in case No. A58-1247/2014; Resolution of the 9th AAC of 03.06.2015 No. 09AP-17814/2015 in case No. A40-2497/14).

When an arbitration court resolves a dispute over the recovery of necessary documents from a debtor’s counterparty, the bankruptcy trust must, among other things, justify the need for such an appeal to the court, specify its demand (indicate the list of documents and information), justify the need for their submission, the impossibility of obtaining documents in another way, and also indicate what information about the debtor is contained in these documents. The counterparty, as a person participating in the relevant separate dispute, has the right to file objections regarding the requirement of the CU, present evidence in support of its objections, appeal the judicial act adopted based on the results of dispute resolution (Articles 4, 9, 65 of the Arbitration Procedure Code of the Russian Federation).

It should be borne in mind that, according to the legal position set out in the Ruling of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation dated September 29, 2015 No. 2015-O "On Refusal to Accept for Consideration the Complaint of Citizen Svetlana Valerievna Ermakova Regarding Violation of Her Constitutional Rights, Article 20.3 of the Federal Law "On Insolvency (Bankruptcy)" and Article 66 of the Arbitration Procedure Code of the Russian Federation", the provisions of Article 20.3 of the Bankruptcy Law, which provide for the right of the AB to request from individuals the necessary information about the debtor, about the persons included in the debtor's management bodies, about controlling persons, about the property belonging to them (including property rights), about the counterparties and about the debtor's obligations, are aimed exclusively at the proper conduct of bankruptcy procedures by the AB and, both in themselves and in conjunction with the provisions of Art. 66 of the Arbitration Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, which allows, among other things, the absence of the opportunity to present evidence from the person from whom it is requested by the court (Part 8), cannot be considered as violating the rights of persons from whom the arbitration court requests documents about the debtor, since these persons can be held liable for failure to fulfill the obligation to provide the documents requested from them only if their guilt is established. Consequently, documents can be requested in court from any persons.

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