The return of businesses to their operations after the quarantine was lifted has provoked an increase in the number of corporate conflicts. This conclusion was made by analysts of investment company A1 and Skolkovo Moscow School of Management, who developed an index of business environment conflicts, writes RBC.

The level of conflict in the business environment began to grow again after a decline, which has been observed since the end of 2019.

Experts calculated the index using a formula taking into account the dynamics of corporate litigation, media reports on corporate conflicts and changes in the number of large companies in the market.

However, statistics on criminal cases against businessmen were not taken into account in the calculation of the A1 index due to the impossibility to unambiguously distinguish cases that relate specifically to corporate disputes.

In the three quarters of 2019, the country's business conflict index decreased from 1.93 in the fourth quarter of 2019 to 1.15 in the third quarter of last year. But in the last months of 2020, this index began to grow and reached 1.48.

For the first time, the total amount of claims that were put forward in the Russian courts in one quarter amounted to 1 trillion rubles. According to experts, the conflict rate will continue to grow in 2021.

According to the authors, this has been caused by the weakening of quarantine, which provoked a rapid recovery of business activity, and this always intensifies corporate disputes, especially in courts, writes the publication

.

Another reason is that the increase in business activity coincided with a sharp rise in the number of bankruptcies among medium and small businesses. The collision of these two trends has led to an increase in the conflict index - mainly its judicial component.

Due to the growing number of bankruptcies, large and medium-sized companies became more interested in mergers and acquisitions.

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Author: Ksenia Gustova