This study examines the rationale for granting secured creditors the right to priority satisfaction as an exception from the principle of “Pari passu”. The priority status of secured creditors is often perceived as an obvious truth that does not require additional argumentation. This seems very strange, since the priority of secured creditors at first glance is out of line with the general logic of bankruptcy law on equal treatment of creditors. The first part of the study examines the economic approach, which justifies the fairness of the priority status of secured creditors through the concept of economic efficiency. The second part of the study examines the private law approach, in which the priority status of secured creditors is considered as a development of the ideas of private law. The methodological basis of this study was the analysis of scientific Russian and foreign literature, as well as the application of a systems approach. The novelty of this study lies in the joint analysis of both economic and private law approaches, as well as their comparison with each other. It is concluded that within the framework of the economic approach, there is a violation of the cause-and-effect relationship: economic efficiency, which manifests itself in the form of a decrease in the interest rate as a result of the concentration of the creditor's interests around the subject of the pledge, is precisely a consequence of the priority status enjoyed by such a secured creditor, but not vice versa. In this regard, the priority position of secured creditors can only be explained through a private law approach, the meaning of which lies in the consistent application to the sphere of bankruptcy law of the basic ideas of private law, namely the ideas of freedom of contract and the free alienability of property under the control of a specific person.
Arthur Ramilevich Khalikov (Thu,) studied this question.