PJSC "Chelyabenergosbyt" appealed to the Arbitration Court of the Chelyabinsk region with a petition declaring bankrupt LLC "Bakalskoe ore management" (BRU) with the amount of claims of 374.8 million rubles. In "Chelyabenergosbyt" they say that the lawsuits with the Security Service Bureau have been going on for several years and accuse the debtor of "malicious default of the court decision". Together with the "Chelyabenergosbyt" claim against the BIA in the arbitration court over the past six months, various applications have been filed by the various organizations for a total amount of 443.5 million rubles. The Bakal Mining Administration is assured that they have repeatedly tried to resolve the problems with the power engineers and hope that they will succeed in this. The head of the Bakal urban settlement, Andrei Zarachintsev, states that the bankruptcy of the BRU will become a "collapse of the city".

"Chelyabenergosbyt" on June 4 appealed to the Arbitration Court of the Chelyabinsk region with a declaration recognizing the Bakal mine management bankrupt with the amount of claims of more than 370 million rubles. As the "U-South Ural" company was informed in the energy sales company, the total debt of the BRU on June 5 reached 394.8 million rubles. Out of this amount, 380.4 million have already been disbursed and is on the writ of execution. The reason for the litigation is "default on payment obligations if there is an actual possibility to conduct it." "PJSC" Chelyabenergosbyt "repeatedly offered various solutions to the current situation. The last time the proposal for debt restructuring was sent to the BRU in December 2017, but it remained unanswered, "the press service of the BSEC said. At the same time, the company noted that the BRU periodically "throws in" small amounts to pay the debt, but it is not more than 1% of the total debt.

For the administration of Bakal, the bankruptcy petition of the town-forming enterprise became an unpleasant "surprise": the head of the urban settlement Andrei Zarachintsev knew nothing about this statement before calling "Yuzhny Ural", although he was aware of the lengthy litigation between the two enterprises. The administration tried to help the BRU and appealed to the regional authorities, in particular the Ministry of Economic Development of the region with a request to assist in the settlement of the conflict. The last meetings on this issue took place in March - April this year. As a result, even with the participation of the authorities, it was not possible to reach an agreement between the conflicting parties.

In the Bakal mine, "Yuzhny Ural" said that the company made attempts at a pre-trial dispute, but "Chelyabenergosbyt" requires a 100% payment and does not go to debt restructuring. According to a source close to the management of the BRU, the company filed a counterclaim against PJSC "Chelyabenergosbyt" about "illegal disconnection from the power grid" at two production sites for which there was no debt. This suit is currently under consideration in the Arbitration Court.

As the Deputy General Director for mergers, acquisitions and corporate relations of the NMD "Ural" (including BRU LLC) Sergey Baksheev commented, the reason for the accumulation of debt was the fall in the price of iron ore raw materials, which occurred in 2015 and has not yet ended. "Starting in 2016, BRU LLC is trying to negotiate with Chelyabenergosbyt about the debt restructuring, but BSEC representatives do not go on counter-proposals, at the same time they continue to charge penalties for the formed debts." Mr. Baksheev noted that with all other creditors of the BRU, including the Federal Tax Service for the Chelyabinsk region, the company was able to sign the settlement agreements with the terms of the restructuring, which allowed the company to pay off all debts without serious consequences.

According to the head of the Bakal urban settlement, Andrei Zarachintsev, "if the BIA bankrupts - it will be the collapse of the city." "According to the census of population in Bakal, there are about 20 thousand people, more than 1 thousand of them work in the Bakalsky ore management. Monitoring of the local market shows that the main revenue of small and medium-sized businesses in the city comes on the day of salary at the BRU, "says Mr. Zarachintsev. In his opinion, if the company goes bankrupt, Chelyabenergosbyt will not receive anything anyway, as most of the BRU is in pledge with the creditor bank (VTB24).

In the BRU "U-South Ural" they said that they "intend to settle the issue with the filed application for the recognition of the enterprise bankrupt." But how exactly this will be done, could not be clarified.