Supreme Court to study Transaero’s appeal under dispute with agency

MOSCOW, Aug 1 (PRIME) -- The Russian Supreme Court has approved a cassation appeal of airline Transaero, which is undergoing bankruptcy proceedings, against a decision of lower courts to oblige it to redeem 595 million rubles of state subsidy debt to the Federal Air Transport Agency, a court representative told PRIME on Tuesday.

Since April 2015 until suspension of flights in September of the year, Transaero transported more than 140,000 passengers from the European part of Russia to the Far East at special tariffs set by the government. Under a contract with the agency, the airline was to receive an about 959 million ruble subsidy for the flights, but received only 364 million rubles, and sued the agency to make it pay the remaining part.

Three lower courts rejected the company’s suit saying that Transaero did not prove it had no tax arrears for July–September 2015. The company said that the subsidy is compensation, and provision of compensation cannot be based on having or lacking debts on obligatory payments to the budget.

The Supreme Court thought that the position of Transaero is worth checking, and submitted the cassation appeal of the airline and materials of the case to its judicial panel on economic disputes. The panel will study the appeal on August 10.

Transaero failed to service 250 billion rubles worth of debt and its air operator certificate was recalled in 2015. VTB Bank, Sberbank, Alfa-Bank, the Federal Tax Service, as well as the airline itself earlier filed for the company’s bankruptcy.

(60.0633 rubles – U.S. $1)

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