South Korean company asks Russian court to recover 22 billion rubles from Uzavtosanoat

The Russian “daughter” of the South Korean company Erae CS Co., in the bankruptcy case of the distributor of automobiles Uzdaewooauto-Voronezh, demands that the debtor’s controlling persons, in particular, the Uzbek company Uzavtosanoat, should be brought to subsidiary liability, follows  from the materials of the arbitration court of the Voronezh Oblast.

According to the partner of “Inmar” law firm Konstantin Ivanchin, who represents the interests of LLC I-RE, at the moment the size of subsidiary liability is estimated at 22 billion rubles. The debt to the “daughter” of the Korean company arose under a dealership agreement of December 3, 2015, according to which it transferred $10 million to the distributor, but did not receive the cars.

The requirements are presented to Uzavtosanoat, Avtosanoat Invest, JSC General Motors Uzbekistan (GM Uzbekistan), as well as to the persons who held the position of the debtor’s general director from 2013 to 2017 – Yuriy Kan, Khasanbek Muzaffarov and Igor Davidov. Other lenders also filed applications for subsidiary liability.

In April 2017, the Arbitration Court of the Voronezh Oblast declared CJSC FDI Uzdaewooauto-Voronezh bankrupt. The sole shareholder of this company engaged in the wholesale supply of Daewoo and Ravon cars manufactured by GM Uzbekistan to Russia is Avtosanoat Invest, which in turn is owned by Uzavtosanoat.

According to creditors, the debt to GM Uzbekistan, included in the Uzdaewooauto-Voronezh registry, exceeds 9.5 billion rubles (about 40% of the registry). The court in Voronezh scheduled the consideration of the application on bringing the controlling persons of the debtor to subsidiary liability on April 13.

In March 2008, General Motors (then in a 25% share) and Uzavtosanoat (then – 75% share) completed the process of creating a GM Uzbekistan joint venture on the basis of UzDaewooAuto. In October 2017, GM decided to phase out JV GM Uzbekistan shareholders. In December 2018, Uzavtosanoat fully acquired GM’s stake in the joint venture.