Communicated on 3 December 2014
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 66209/10
HUNGUEST ZRT
against Hungary
lodged on 4 November 2010
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Hunguest Zrt, is a company limited by shares registered under Hungarian law with its seat in Budapest. It is represented before the Court by Mr G. Magyar, a lawyer practising in Budapest.
The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
In 2000 a property claim was brought against the applicant and other respondents.
On 6 June 2000 the Budapest Regional Court ordered the applicant, under section 187(1) of Act no. LIII of 1994 on Court Execution, to deposit on the bailiff’s trust account, security in the amount of 275 million Hungarian forints (HUF) (approximately 1 million euros). Under the law, such deposits yield no interest. The applicant’s appeal was to no avail. The money was deposited on 27 March 2001. The applicant’s subsequent requests to have the money released, in exchange for other securities offered, were turned down.
After remittals on 27 November 2002 and 8 June 2007, on 16 October 2008 the Regional Court adopted a judgment and ordered the applicant to pay HUF 137,280,000 plus interest, accrued as of 6 January 2000. On 16 October 2009 and 29 April 2010, respectively, the Budapest Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court upheld this decision.
The amount actually payable by the applicant exceeded the amount of the deposit, although the plaintiff succeeded only partly in the litigation. This outcome was the consequence of the fact that whilst the applicant was ordered to pay accrued interest on the money due to the plaintiff, its own money deposited on the bailiff’s trust account had yielded no interest.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention about the length of the litigation. Moreover, under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, it complains that the fact that a large sum of money was ordered to be deposited on the bailiff’s trust account for some ten years amounted to an excessive individual burden.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Was the length of the civil proceedings in the present case in breach of the “reasonable time” requirement of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention?
2. Has there been an interference with the applicant’s peaceful enjoyment of possessions, within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, given that the money the applicant was ordered to deposit on the bailiff’s trust account yielded no interest? If so, did that interference impose an excessive individual burden on the applicant (see Immobiliare Saffi v. Italy, [GC], no. 22774/93, § 59, ECHR 1999-V)?
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