60
UNIYA OOO AND BELCOURT TRADING COMPANY v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT
that provision” (see Iatridis v. Greece [GC], no. 31107/96, § 54, ECHR
1999-II, and Öneryıldız v. Turkey [GC], no. 48939/99, § 124, ECHR 2004-
XII).
303. In the present case the authorities, referring to the 1997 agreement,
refused to recognise that the title to the second consignment ever passed to
Uniya; in the absence of other contenders, and in the light of the
circumstances of its importation to Russia the inevitable conclusion is that
the alcohol for all practical purposes remained the “possession” of the seller,
i.e. Belcourt. The Court will proceed with the examination of the case on the
basis of this assumption.
(b) Whether the destruction of the second consignement was contrary to the
Convention
304. The Government seemed to argue, with reference to the reasoning
of the domestic courts in the tort proceedings, that the applicant companies
had suffered no pecuniary loss as a result of the destruction of the second
consignment and that their rights under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 were not
consequently affected (see paragraphs 172 et seq. above, where the findings
of the commercial courts are summarised; see also paragraphs 179 and 189
which describe the findings of the courts of general jurisdiction).
305. The Court accepts that the amount of damage caused by an
interference with someone’s possessions is a question apart, and one which
should be addressed separately from the question of the existence of an
interference and the legitimacy thereof. It is possible to imagine a situation
where an interference with possessions has little or even no effect on the
pecuniary interests of the person concerned. However, in the present case
the interference took the form of the destruction of property apparently
worth several million US dollars (see, for example, paragraph 13 above).
That property was not prohibited from circulation and was openly imported
to Russia for sale on the retail market. In such circumstances the Court has
no doubt that the destruction of the second consignment amounted to an
interference with the second applicant’s possessions, whatever was the exact
value of those “possessions”.
306. The Court reiterates that the first and most important requirement
of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 is that any interference by a public authority
with the peaceful enjoyment of possessions should be lawful
(Guiso-Gallisay v. Italy, no. 58858/00, § 82, 8 December 2005). The Court
observes that by virtue of the investigator’s decision of 2 September 2002
the alcohol in the second consignment was sent to a Moscow-based firm
and destroyed. The investigator’s decision was declared unlawful by the
decision of 7 November 2005 by the Baltiyskiy District Court. That fact
alone is sufficient for the Court to conclude that the destruction of the
alcohol was contrary to Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (see, for example,
UNIYA OOO AND BELCOURT TRADING COMPANY v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT
61
Belvedere Alberghiera S.r.l. v. Italy, no. 31524/96, §§ 61-63, ECHR
2000-VI).
307. The Court further notes that although the authorities acknowledged
the unlawfulness of the destruction, they refused to award the second
applicant company (Belcourt) any compensation for the alcohol destroyed.
308. In these circumstances the Court concludes that the destruction of
the second consignment of alcohol, as well as the refusal of the domestic
courts to pay Belcourt any compensation for the destruction, violated the
second applicant company’s rights under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.
III. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 1 OF PROTOCOL No. 1 ON
ACCOUNT OF THE SEIZURE OF THE ALCOHOL
309. The Court observes that the applicant companies’ complaint under
Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, cited above, has a second limb, namely the
allegedly arbitrary seizure of the two consignments of alcohol. The Court
observes that before their destruction both consignments were seized and
retained by the investigative authorities for the purposes of the criminal
proceedings in Mr Golovkin’s case. In other circumstances such measures
as removal or attachement of property within criminal porceedings would
warrant a separate examination under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. However,
in the present case the alcohol seized was, after a certain lapse of time,
destroyed for the reasons which had not been directly related to the reasons
for its seizure. Thus, a temporary dispossession transformed into a definite
loss of the property, which was a significantly more serious interference
with the applicant companies’ rights under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.
Although in the domestic proceedings the applicant companies complained
of both types of interference with their possessions, their primary objective
was to obtain damages in connection with the destruction of the alcohol. In
such circumstances, bearing in mind that the applicant companies’ main
grievance about the destruction has been sufficiently addressed above, the
Court decides that the question of the seizures of the alcohol do not require
a separate examination.
IV. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 6 OF THE CONVENTION
310. Under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention the applicant companies
complained that they had been unable to obtain an effective judicial review
of the seizure and destruction of the alcohol. Article 6 § 1, in so far as
relevant, reads as follows:
“In the determination of his civil rights and obligations ... everyone is entitled to a
fair ... hearing ... by [a] ... tribunal ...”