Bankruptcy of employer: the competition of labor and insolvency law

The article notes that the issue of satisfying labor payment claims is far from being the only problem that employees of an insolvent employer may face. A widespread occurrence has been the challenge of labor agreements in bankruptcy cases, resulting in the recovery of wages that have already been paid to employees. An analysis of judicial practice leads to the disappointing conclusion that labor agreements are, in fact, equated to civil law transactions. In this context, the provisions of Article 137 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, which restrict the possibility of recovering paid wages, are often ignored. The article emphasizes that this issue has not only a theoretical nature but also reflects practical implications. The author concludes that there is a need for the generalization at the level of higher judicial instances of the accumulated theoretical and practical material regarding the challenge of labor agreements in bankruptcy cases, with the aim of choosing a unified concept in understanding the legal nature and applicable law for this category of disputes. Within the frame-work of such generalization, it is necessary to emphasize the priority of labor law norms and the possibility of solely subsidiary application of civil legislation regarding the invalidity of transactions.