A court in Moscow has decided to terminate the proceedings in the lawsuit filed by a man named Artem Chekalin against his wife, blogger Lercek (Valeria Chekalin), regarding the division of their joint property. This information was announced on May 29th. The court has returned the claimant's statement, suggesting that the deficiencies in the filing should be corrected. According to the updated case file, the current state of the lawsuit is "not filed."
The court's decision was based on the non-compliance with the requirements set forth in Articles 131 and 132 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation ("Form and Content of the Claim", "Documents Attached to the Claim").
The husband had filed the lawsuit on March 25th and April 12th, but neither of them attended any of the hearings. In a conversation with Izvestiya, lawyer Alexander Dobrovinsky speculated that the blogger may have received a warning from the tax authorities. He also mentioned that the tax authorities may not stop at the terminated criminal case against the Chekalins. Valeria's divorce lawsuit will be considered on June 11th, and the judge had given the couple nearly two months to reconcile.
In March, it was reported that the tax authorities had seized the property of Valeria Chekalin due to unpaid taxes amounting to around 300 million rubles. In the same month, it became known that a new criminal case had been opened against the Chekalins for money laundering. However, at that time, the authorities refused to close the case. On January 15th, the Chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia, Alexander Bastrykin, clarified that the tax evasion case had been terminated because the Chekalins admitted their guilt and fully repaid the tax shortfall, penalties, and fines.
The court ruling to terminate the proceedings signifies that the lawsuit regarding the division of joint property between the Chekalins has come to an end. However, the divorce lawsuit filed by Valeria Chekalin is still pending and will be considered separately.
