“The way nominal CEOs ‘hand over’ to the courts the real owners” — Anna Volynets for RBC Pro
According to the law "On Bankruptcy", if the nominee director gives the court the true owner and tells where he hid the assets, the court can reduce the amount of his liability for debts or even release him from it.
Anna Volynets, Advocate, Project Manager in Prime Advice:
As a rule, the courts refuse to reduce liability (paragraph 9 of Article 61.11), referring to the fact that "nominal" did not provide enough explanations and evidence to bring other persons to justice or to actually replenish the bankruptcy estate. But we are faced with "non-procedural agreements" of the bankruptcy trustee with one of the co-defendants to reduce the risks of his liability in exchange for assistance. Such cooperation may not be advertised, but it is quite obvious in the context of a particular case.
For example, one of the co-defendants began to submit to the court detailed multi-page descriptions of how the company operated, who was subordinate to whom, how decisions were made, etc. In fact, he "testified against the co-defendant" (and exactly as it was beneficial to the manager). After such "testimony", the manager no longer showed interest in this co-defendant, and the question of bringing him to justice "left to the discretion of the court". The main attack of the manager was directed against another co-respondent.
Another example is when the manager aims in advance to bring a particular person to justice, and the "nominal" even before filing an application to the court persuades "to tell everything" in order to avoid falling into the circle of co-defendants in advance.