Another interesting case involved a company that had failed to recover a debt owed to a general partnership because, after the judgment had been rendered many years after the lawsuit had begun, the company and the partners had gone bankrupt and the assets proved insufficient to satisfy the creditors.

At that point, my client's director, discouraged by the sequence of events, had approached my firm for advice. His analysis of the case allowed him to discover that a former partner of the bankrupt had not been involved in the bankruptcy and had owned several properties before transferring them to his wife when they separated a few years ago. The wife, for her part, had then established a family trust for the benefit of her children into which the real estate had been transferred.

The transfer of the real estate at the time of separation had taken place in order to provide for past and future maintenance payments in favor of the wife and children. Provisions had also been made in the trust for the assets to be given to the children who were beneficiaries of the trust after the death of the declarant. In this way, the couple had found a way to hide assets from creditors and anticipate some effects of succession.

The case was rather complex and, nevertheless, the fact that five years had not yet elapsed since the separation made it possible to file a lawsuit against the former partner together with his wife and children and ask for the revocation of the deeds of transfer of real estate and establishment of trusts by requesting the application of Article 2901 of the Civil Code.

This is that provision whereby the creditor, under certain conditions, can apply for acts of disposition of assets by which the debtor prejudices his reasons to be declared ineffective against him.

The case was based on many circumstantial elements, but all of them unequivocal, directed at proving the gratuitous nature of the real estate transfer and in any case the knowledge of the debt and the damage caused to creditors by the wife of the former debtor partner and the debtor himself.

In the course of the trial, the other party, assessing the risks it was facing, offered to settle the debt in full provided the case was dropped.

My client therefore obtained an excellent result.

Against the debtor who disposes of assets and becomes a nullity, then, some remedy is there, but no time should be wasted.