Published on 17 October 2022

SECOND SECTION

Application no. 64760/14 COSMOBIL S.R.L. against the Republic of Moldova lodged on 11 September 2014 communicated on 29 September 2022

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns deprivation of the applicant company’s property and allegedly inadequate compensation for the damage caused.

The applicant company’s property (2,390 mobile phones stored in its shops in order to be sold) was seized by the police. In April 2009 it was transferred to the State Fiscal Inspectorate (SFI). The applicant company asked the SFI several times not to sell the phones pending the outcome of the court proceedings concerning that seizure. On 16 June 2009 a court annulled the seizure decision and ordered the return of the phones to the applicant company (a decision which was not appealed and thus became final). Despite numerous requests to enforce that decision and not to sell the phones, during July-September 2009 all the phones were sold at auctions. In May 2010 the SFI transferred almost 1.5 million Moldovan lei (MDL) to the applicant company.

The applicant company’s court action claiming damages for the unlawful seizure and sale at a price much lower than the market value of the phones was ultimately rejected since in the courts’ finding the SFI had sold the phones in accordance with the law; if the company considered that its rights had been breached it could lodge a court action “in another manner provided by law”.

The applicant company complains of a breach of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention since its property had been unlawfully seized and sold and it had only received a small part of its market value. It also complains of a violation of Article 13 of the Convention as it had been unable to prevent the sale of its property and to obtain its return despite a final court decision ordering its return.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Did the applicant company exhaust available domestic remedies? If so, has there been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention as a result of the seizure of the applicant company’s property and the failure to return it despite a final court order to that effect? In particular, was the interference with the applicant company’s property rights lawful within the meaning of that provision (compare Iatridis v. Greece [GC], no. 31107/96, §§ 58 and 61, ECHR 1999 ‑ II, and Yel and Others v. Turkey , no. 28241/18, §§ 88 et seq. , 13 July 2021)? Was the applicant company subjected to “an individual and excessive burden”, within the meaning of that provision, as a result of the refusal to fully compensate it for the damage caused (compare Lekić v. Slovenia [GC], no. 36480/07, § 110, 11 December 2018)?

2. Has there been a breach of Article 13 of the Convention? In particular, did the applicant company have at its disposal an effective remedy in preventing the sale of its property seized and obtaining its return (compare Iatridis , cited above, §§ 65-66)?