Analytics Publications

The outdoor advertising operator Lisa was able to challenge the statement of the Inspectorate of the Federal Tax Service (IFTS) No. 1 in Moscow to declare the company bankrupt, follows from the materials of the Moscow Arbitration Court. The court returned the FTS statement on June 5, citing the fact that the Russ Outdoor group, which includes Lisa, was included in the list of backbone companies on April 17 that are subject to a bankruptcy moratorium. A lawsuit by the Federal Tax Service was filed on March 3, but by April 17 was still not accepted for production due to violations during the initial filing.

Russ Outdoor declined to comment, while the Federal Tax Service confirmed that the bankruptcy petition was returned by the court. Earlier in April, Russ Outdoor told Kommersant that the inspection filed a lawsuit, considering taxes unpaid for 2016, but the company itself insists that they have been paid and is reconciling with the tax authorities, which is complicated by restrictions due to coronavirus. The debt amount at Russ Outdoor was not disclosed.

Lyisa is one of the largest operators in the outdoor advertising market and a long-term partner of Russian Railways, with which it has been cooperating since 2006. The current contract with the state monopoly allows Laysa to place advertisements on trains, at the MCC and railway stations and install advertising structures along the railway until the end of 2021. Lisa entered Russ Outdoor as a result of two major mergers in 2019: first, as Kommersant wrote on April 23, 2019, the company was bought by Vera-Olympus group, and then, on July 25, it acquired 48.57 % Russ Outdoor. According to SPARK-Interfax, in 2019 the revenue of JSC Laysa amounted to 1.2 billion rubles, net profit - 201.5 million rubles.

<...> In such borderline cases, the decisive factor is precisely the date on which the court considers the issue of accepting the bankruptcy petition for production, confirms Valeria Tikhonova, senior lawyer for Vegas Lex bankruptcy.