THIRD SECTION

FINAL DECISION

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Application no. 68103/01 by Karsten TRIPPEL against Germany

The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section) , sitting on 20 March 2003 as a Chamber composed of

Mr I. Cabral Barreto , President , Mr G. Ress , Mr P. Kūris , Mr B. Zupančič , Mr J. Hedigan , Mrs M. Tsatsa-Nikolovska , Mr K. Traja, judges , and Mr V. Berger , Section Registrar ,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 12 March 2001,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant, Karsten Trippel, is a German national, who lives in Großbottwar, Germany. He is represented before the Court by Mr Christofer Lenz, a lawyer practising in Stuttgart, Germany.

The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.

The applicant owned four shares in a company, the MotoMeter AG. 99 % of this company’s shares were held by the company Robert Bosch GmbH. On 6 July 1992, following a majority decision of the shareholders’ meeting, the MotoMeter AG sold all its company assets to a newly founded company, the MotoMeter GmbH, and was subsequently liquidated. The majority shareholder offered to buy the minority shareholders’ shares at a price of 615 DEM per share.

On 22 July 1992, the applicant and other private shareholders challenged the decision of 6 July 1992 before the Stuttgart Regional Court. They submitted that the main shareholder had circumvented rules aiming at the protection of minority shareholders inherent in the German Act on Stock Companies ( Aktiengesetz ). They further complained that the main shareholder’s offer was too low and that minority shareholders had not been able to buy parts of the assets.

On 22 January 1993, the Regional Court rejected the claim on the grounds that the decision in question was lawful and that there had been no violation of the applicant’s and other shareholders’ rights.

On 21 December 1993, the Stuttgart Court of Appeal rejected the appeals lodged by the applicant and the other minority shareholders.

On 5 December 1994, the Federal Court of Justice refused to entertain their appeals on points of law.

On 12 January 1995, the applicant lodged a constitutional complaint with the Federal Constitutional Court. On 23 August 2000, the Federal Constitutional Court refused to entertain this complaint on the ground that, as he had only owned four shares of  the company, selling these shares at the price mentioned above did not pose an existential burden for him. It also found that the constitutional complaint was not of fundamental constitutional significance.

COMPLAINT

The applicant complains that the length of proceedings before the Federal Constitutional Court exceeded a reasonable time within the meaning of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.

THE LAW

According to the applicant, the length of the proceedings before the Federal Constitutional Court is in breach of the “reasonable time” requirement laid down in Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.

The Government submitted that the constitutional complaint concerned dealt with a legally and constitutionally very complex and difficult subject matter. As regards the importance the case held for the applicant, the Government denied that there was much at stake for him, seeing as in the prior civil proceedings, he had suffered a loss of only 1,200 DEM (approximately 613 Euro) at the most.

The Government observed that the Federal Constitutional Court proceedings had been delayed by the necessary and reasonable grouping together of several complaints dealing with an almost identical set of facts. The Federal Constitutional Court had waited for a decision of the Stuttgart Court of Appeal and the ensuing submission of a complaint to the Federal Constitutional Court in 1997 in order to obtain a comprehensive view of the legal issues involved. It had also preferred to wait for a leading decision of another chamber of the Federal Constitutional Court in 1999 with regard to the scope of the right to property in such matters. According to the Government, it had been reasonable and necessary to proceed in this manner (see the Süßmann v. Germany judgment of 16 September 1996, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1996-IV, p. 1174, § 59). Such behaviour also corresponded to the established practice of the Federal Constitutional Court. The Government stressed that the Federal Constitutional Court had based its decision on the leading decision of 1999, but denied that the applicant’s case had been rejected because he had only held a relatively small financial interest in the civil proceedings before the Stuttgart civil courts.

Finally, the Government recalled that the principle established in the Goretzki v. Germany decision ( Goretzki v. Germany , no. 52447/99, decision of 24 January 2002), namely that lower courts were permitted to suspend proceedings pending a decision of the Federal Constitutional Court, should, vice versa , also apply to the Federal Constitutional Court.

The applicant objected to the Government’s arguments. He referred to the fact that in the present case, a leading case had been pending before another chamber of the Federal Constitutional Court since 1994.

The applicant disputed that the case was very complex, finding instead that information on the facts and law would not have been difficult, in particular as a case with a similar subject matter had been decided on by the Federal Constitutional Court in 1962.

Considering the fact that the value in dispute had been fixed at one million DEM (approximately 511,000 Euro) by the lower courts, the applicant also denied that his complaint was not of far-reaching importance.

The Court considers, in the light of the criteria established in its case-law on the question of “reasonable time” (the complexity of the case, the applicant’s conduct and that of the competent authorities), and having regard to all the information in its possession, that an examination of the merits of this complaint is required.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Declares the application admissible, without prejudging the merits of the case.

Vincent Berger Ireneu Cabral Barreto Registrar President