Published on 13 December 2021

FIFTH SECTION

Application no. 28062/20 Nikoloz SHARABIDZE and Others against Georgia lodged on 8 July 2020 communicated on 23 November 2021

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the allegedly disproportionate seizure by the Bank of Georgia of the four applicants’ property. The first applicant is the General Director of the second applicant company, Ltd. Inzhmsheni, and the third applicant is his wife. In 2007 the second applicant signed a loan agreement with the Bank of Georgia under which the latter was to provide the applicant with a line of credit in the amount of up to 10,000,000 US Dollars. The first, third and fourth applicants acted as guarantors, using their private property as collateral. Following the failure of the second applicant to meet its credit obligations and in line with relevant agreements concluded by the four applicants with the bank, on 12 June 2014 a notary issued several writs of execution ordering the seizure of various assets of all four applicants for the purpose of forfeiture. The applicants initiated civil proceedings against the bank, arguing, inter alia , that the amount the second applicant had owed to the bank and the value of the assets subject to seizure had not been assessed, and that the interference with their property rights was grossly disproportionate. The domestic courts rejected the applicants’ civil claim in its entirety. Without assessing the difference between the value of the seized property and the actual bank debt of the second applicant, they concluded, among others, that all four applicants had voluntarily entered into contractual obligations with the Bank of Georgia and that their decisions about the risks they had taken were informed.

The applicants complain under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 about the disproportionate seizure of their property by the Bank of Georgia.

QUESTION TO THE PARTIES

Has there been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 in that the courts ordered the seizure of the applicants’ assets allegedly without assessing their value and without comparing that value to the amount of the debt for the payment of the which the seizure was ordered? Did the domestic courts’ decisions result in a disproportionate burden on the applicants, within the meaning of that provision (see Ališ ić and Others v. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia [GC], no. 60642/08, § 108, ECHR 2014; see also Kotov v. Russia [GC], no. 54522/00, §§ 111-13, 3 April 2012, and Zolotas v. Greece (no. 2) , no. 66610/09, §§ 39-42, ECHR 2013 (extracts)?

APPENDIX

No.

Applicant’s Name

Year of birth/registration

Nationality

Place of residence

1.Nikoloz SHARABIDZE

1944Georgian

Tbilisi

2.LTD ‘INZHMSHENI’

1996Georgian

Tbilisi

3.Tsisana SHARABIDZE

1946Georgian

Tbilisi

4.Giorgi SHILAKADZE

1971Georgian

Tbilisi