TOMASZ PRZYBECKI
18-09-2018

Bankruptcy law – a case brought by a trustee

In the District Court in Poznań, after almost four years, the proceedings in which the trustee of the company in bankruptcy demanded that the contract under which the law firm’s clients had purchased an investment property on a lake be declared ineffective ended.

The law firm’s clients bought a parcel of land from a company that had previously acquired the property from another company, which had already been declared bankrupt after it sold the land. The trustee took the position that the bankrupt company’s sale of the plot of land wronged its creditors and benefited later purchasers of the property who knew of the wrongness. He invoked the provisions of the Bankruptcy Law and the Civil Code regarding the pauliai complaint. In the event that the claim is

granted, the trustee would have the opportunity to bring the clients’ properties to an auction sale. Customers are unlikely to get back the money they put into buying the plot. The District Court dismissed the trustee’s claim in its entirety – it shared the arguments presented by the law firm and found that the trustee had failed to prove that the prerequisites for declaring the clients’ contract ineffective had occurred. The verdict is not final.