And again on September 31st: how a contract with a non-existent date brought business partners to court

The trial of Evgeny Gladyshev, the former managing director of Amilco, one of the largest Russian enterprises for deep processing of corn, has begun in Moscow. He is accused of attempted fraud on a particularly large scale. According to investigators, Gladyshev took advantage of the trust of the company's owner, Nikolai Serebryakov, issued a fictitious assignment agreement and received payments from the organization for three years, and then tried to recover additional funds from it through the court. Investigators believe that the actions of the former manager caused damage to Amilco, while the defense insists on his innocence. About how the relationship of former partners ended in a criminal case and what role September 31 played in it — in the Izvestia article.

What is the former director accused of?

The conflict was preceded by many years of cooperation. In 2006, entrepreneur Nikolai Serebryakov founded the Amilko corn syrup factory and invited his friend Evgeny Gladyshev, with whom he had previously worked, to the position of executive director. Gladyshev later became the general and then managing director of the company.

"Without him (Gladyshev. In principle, no significant decisions were made at the enterprise, since he used it (Serebryakova. — Ed.) unlimited trust," says the case file, which is available to Izvestia.

In 2012, Nikolai Serebryakov signed an interest-bearing loan agreement with his company for 45 million rubles at 10.5% per annum. In 2016, the rate was increased to 12%. As the businessman explained, "not everything was going well for the company, the plant was developing, and the money was really needed for stable operation."

According to him, at the same time, in 2016, Evgeny Gladyshev said that he would also like to have additional income. However, he did not have the money to finance the plant. And the managing director offered to assign a part of the company's obligations in the amount of 9.75 million rubles. The partners signed an agreement, but they did not agree on a date for the transfer of funds.

At the same time, the document stated that Gladyshev allegedly paid the obligations. The investigation believes that he did not have the opportunity to deposit such money: his official income and account balances were significantly lower than this amount. In 2015, he earned about 1.32 million rubles, his wife — about 351 thousand rubles.

The head of the legal department of Amilko claims that Gladyshev himself verbally informed her about the terms of the contract, including that 9.75 million rubles had already been transferred. She did not specify the payment to Serebryakov separately, due to the close relationship of the partners and the authority of the managing director.

As a result, from April 2016 to June 2019, Amilco transferred 39 payments to Gladyshev - an average of 78-86 thousand rubles per month for a total amount of more than 3.3 million rubles. The investigation considers these payments as damages. Then, according to the prosecution, Gladyshev tried to recover another 15.6 million rubles from the company through a civil court.

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Who owes who

Evgeny Gladyshev claims that for many years Nikolai Serebryakov borrowed money from him, so the transfer of funds took place even before the contract was signed. According to the defense, a total of 26.1 million rubles were credited to Gladyshev's accounts with the designation "loan repayment". However, there is only one contract among the case materials, where the return date is indicated as "September 31" — a non-existent date.

Serebryakov insists that he did not borrow money from Gladyshev, and the transfers were issued as a "loan repayment" at the request of the accused and actually went to his personal needs.

Separately, the parties argued about Gladyshev's share in the company — 2% of the authorized capital. After being fired in 2019, he demanded compensation and went to court in 2021. The Arbitration Court of the Rostov region, by its decision (Izvestia has it), decided to pay Gladyshev 21.8 million rubles for the share, 5.4 million as interest for using other people's money, and also to refund the cost of court costs. The total amount exceeded 27 million rubles.

What has Gladyshev already been tried for?

After Gladyshev's dismissal, it became known that he had disclosed corporate information to competitors. In this case, the court sentenced him to two years of probation.

In addition, the management of Amilco found out that 9.75 million rubles, for which the assignment of rights was issued, were not transferred to Serebryakov. The entrepreneur contacted the police only in 2022. During the investigation, Gladyshev stated that Serebryakov had not mentioned fraud for nine years, but filed a complaint only after the court ordered Amilko to pay the former manager more than 27 million rubles.

"His actions are solely due to his unwillingness to pay under the loan agreement," the defendant's testimony says.

Gladyshev's lawyer Maxim Silvestri considers the criminal prosecution illegal.

"I will use all possible legal means to seek an acquittal for Yevgeny Gladyshev," he told Izvestia.

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Why is it difficult to prove guilt

Fraud on a particularly large scale belongs to the category of serious crimes and carries a penalty of up to ten years in prison, Yulia Kurina, a member of the Union of Blogging Lawyers based at the Moscow State Law Institute at the AYUR, told Izvestia. In this case, the accused is charged with attempted crime, so the sanction cannot exceed three quarters of the maximum penalty under this article.

However, for criminal liability, it is not enough to prove only the fact of non-transfer of money under the contract, the lawyer notes.

"The investigation needs to establish that already at the time of signing the contract, the accused had direct intent to embezzle and acted by deception or abuse of trust,— Yulia Kurina explained.

On the other hand, she stressed, the fact that the company continued to fulfill the contract and did not immediately demand a refund of the interest paid does not in itself exclude the corpus delicti, but it may be important in assessing the position of the prosecution.

Lawyer Alexander Zhilin also believes that the key issue will be the existence of intent to steal at the time of the transaction.

If Gladyshev initially did not intend to pay 9.75 million rubles, but intended only to receive interest, this may indicate fraud. If he was going to, but could not, this is a failure to fulfill obligations, that is, the subject of civil law, not criminal law.

In addition, the defense has the right to draw the court's attention to the statute of limitations, which in this category of cases are ten years. However, according to the lawyer, the investigation may insist that the crime was ongoing or was completed later, for example, at the time of receiving payments or the discovery of alleged fraud.

And the fact that the victim did not demand a refund for a long time can be used by the defense as an argument in favor of the fact that the transaction was perceived by the parties as legitimate, the expert noted.