Published on 6 February 2023

FIFTH SECTION

Application no. 36484/16 D.B. against Ukraine lodged on 22 June 2016 communicated on 18 January 2023

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the commercial proceedings regarding the validity of a legal-service contract concluded in July 2009 between an attorneys’ association (“адвокатське об’єднання”) acting in the interests and to the benefit of the applicant, at the time its managing partner, and his fellow partners, on one side, and a State-appointed administrator of a private bank at the time in the process of being taken over by the State, on the other side. The proceedings were instituted by the bank against the association in December 2013. The applicant joined the proceedings as a third party, having lodged his appeal against the first-instance judgment of 17 March 2014 declaring the contract invalid for the reason that the administrator had acted ultra vires as he had not sought the necessary authorisation from the National Bank. The applicant’s appeals were examined on the merits and were ultimately rejected by the High Commercial Court on 13 January 2016 and by the Supreme Court on 20 April 2016. The applicant complains under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the decisions in the commercial proceedings actually nullified and deprived of any legal effect the judicial decisions in another set of proceedings between the same parties and regarding the same matter concluded by the final decision of the Higher Specialised Court on Civil and Criminal Matters of 25 June 2011. The latter decisions upheld the validity of the contract, finding no fault on the part of the administrator when concluding the contract and making payments to the applicant and his fellow partners for the services they had provided to the bank.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

Did the applicant have a fair hearing in the determination of his civil rights and obligations, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention?

In particular, was the principle of legal certainty breached on account of the applicant’s complaint that the commercial proceedings at issue entailed a reconsideration of the matters previously finally determined in the proceedings culminating in the final decision of the Higher Specialised Court on Civil and Criminal Matters of 25 June 2011?