According to civil law, the bondage transaction is an extremely unprofitable contract for one of the parties, infringing upon its rights and imposed on it under circumstances that precluded free expression of will. Article 179 of the Civil Code of Russia notes that such a transaction is usually committed under the influence of violence, deceit, threat, malicious collusion of representatives of one party and other difficult circumstances. At the same time, on the suit of the victim, the court can recognize the bondage transaction as invalid.
Describing the notion of "enslaving a deal", jurists distinguish its following features:
- The victim made a transaction as a result of a combination of difficult circumstances;
- The other party to the transaction was well aware of the circumstances of the victim and tried to use them to obtain their own benefit;
- The terms of the transaction are extremely unprofitable for the victim.
Only in the presence of these features, a casual transaction can be challenged in court. In fact, the victim when filing a lawsuit to the court must prove the presence in a particular transaction of the above three circumstances. Practice, in turn, shows that positive solutions to these claims are a great rarity. If the extreme disadvantage of an agreement for one of the parties is connected with its illiteracy, lack of information or even the manifestation of generosity, then such a transaction can no longer be challenged. The concept of "bargain deal" includes fraudulent transactions. It is also worth noting that Russian law provides for criminal liability in the event of coercion to commit a particular transaction or to refuse it under the threat of violence or damage to another's property. This includes disseminating information that harms the rights and interests of both the victim and his loved ones.
But in the judicial practice there has not yet been developed a unified position on the application of art. 179, describing bonded transactions. Lawyers constantly face the following questions:
- What circumstances can be considered difficult in the context of this article (insolvency, serious illness, etc.)?
- What are the criteria for the disadvantage of certain conditions of the transaction?
- What are the signs indicating the dishonesty of the other party?
The most common example of a bonded transaction is the sale of land or a house for debts. In addition, quite often the bonded transaction provides extremely high interest for the use of funds. If the transaction was recognized as a bond, then the other party returns to the victim all that it received as a result of the transaction. In the case where the received can not be returned in kind, its value is refunded in cash. Despite the fact that bonded transactions are committed quite often, Art. 179 is relatively rarely used in practice. In most cases, victims regain their rights in criminal proceedings, which greatly simplifies the resolution of the dispute. In other circumstances, it is not always easy to find grounds for recognizing the agreement as invalid.