MOSCOW, September 15 (RAPSI) – The Ninth Commercial Court of Appeals rejected an appeal filed by Moscow’s confectionary Menshevik, whose ex-owner Ilya Averyanov had been acquitted of the 2017 murder of a security guard, against a ruling on its bankruptcy, according to court records.

Menshevik was declared bankrupt by the Moscow Commercial Court in July.

The court based its ruling on a report on the financial standing of the debtor submitted by the bankruptcy commissioner, according to which the properties and assets of Menshevik were insufficient to pay off its debts, and restoration of the confectionary’s financial and economic operations was impossible.

The Moscow Commercial Court introduced a supervisory procedure against Menshevik in 2020 after recognizing its debt worth nearly 900,000 rubles (about $12,000 at the current exchange rate) to the applicant, DHA company. 

On October 20, 2020, the Supreme Court of Russia upheld acquittal of ex-owner of Menshevik Ilya Averyanov of murder.

On January 29, 2020, jurors acquitted the man of killing a guard during the shooting on the factory’s premises in 2017 and beating a passerby, who burnt up poplar wool near the factory in 2016. 

Thus, Averyanov was found not guilty of intended infliction of severe bodily harm and murder.

Investigators claimed that on December 27, 2017, a conflict arose between former and current owners of the factory. Ex-owner Averyanov allegedly took out the gun and shot several times, fatally wounding a guard.

The defendant insisted that he used the gun for the purposes of self-defense, and a shot was fired recklessly.