Communicated on 16 March 2016
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 22595/13
Oksana Sergeyevna KHOKHRYAKOVA
against Russia
lodged on 17 March 2013
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Ms Oksana Sergeyevna Khokhryakova, is a Russian national, who was born in 1971 and lives in Kaliningrad.
A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
In 2009 insolvency proceedings were opened in respect of the SU-161 Federal State unitary enterprise of the Special Construction Agency of the Russian Federation (“the FGUP”). The FGUP, a military housing construction company, had “the right of economic control” over the assets allocated to it by its owner, the Russian Federation, in order to carry out its statutory activities. In particular, in 2001 the Russian Federation placed a former dormitory building under the FGUP’s economic control.
In 2011 the FGUP put two premises in the dormitory building up for public auction as non-residential premises. On 29 August 2011 the applicant bought those two lots for for 554,400 Russian roubles (RUB) (approximately 12,914 euros). She paid that amount in full and on 6 October 2011 registered her ownership of the non-residential premises in the national land register. According to the title deeds, she was recognised as owner of the non-residential property.
In 2012 a prosecutor acting on behalf of the Russian Federation lodged a complaint seeking the invalidation of the sale and the return of the premises to the State.
On 30 May 2012 the Verkhniye Saldy Town Court rejected the claim.
On 20 September 2012 the Sverdlovsk Regional Court quashed the judgment on appeal and granted the prosecutor’s claims in full. The court found that the premises in question had never been re-classified from residential to non-residential use. Accordingly, they had remained a part of the social-housing stock and should not have been included in the FGUP’s assessed property for the bankruptcy proceedings. Therefore, their sale at auction had been unlawful. The court invalidated the sale and ordered that the title to the premises be returned to the Russian Federation. It obliged the applicant to return the premises to the owner and further ordered the FGUP to reimburse RUB 554,000 to the applicant.
On 18 February 2013 the FGUP advised the applicant that it had been unable to enforce the judgment owing to lack of funds.
On 25 February 2013 the Sverdlovsk Regional Court refused to institute cassation proceedings, having found no violations of material or procedural norms in the previous proceedings.
The applicant has not received the above amount. It appears that the insolvency proceedings in respect of the FGUP have been pending to date.
B. Relevant domestic law and practice
Legal provisions on the status of State and municipal unitary enterprises and the right of economic control are summarised in Liseytseva and Maslov v. Russia, nos. 39483/05 and 40527/10, §§ 55-127, 9 October 2014.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention that she has been deprived of her property without appropriate compensation and that the judgment of 20 September 2012 has not been enforced to date.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has the applicant been deprived of her possessions in the public interest, in accordance with the conditions provided for by law and in keeping with the principles of international law, within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention? If so, was that deprivation necessary to control the use of property in the general interest? In particular, did that deprivation impose an excessive individual burden on the applicant?
2. Are the debts owed by the Federal State unitary enterprise to the applicant imputable to the State within the meaning of Article 34 of the Convention? The Government are invited to comment on whether the debtor company enjoy sufficient operational and institutional independence from the State (see Ališić and Others v. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia [GC], no. 60642/08, § 114, ECHR 2014, with further references). Were the powers of control provided for in domestic law actually exercised by the authorities in the present case (see Liseytseva and Maslov, cited above, §§ 193-224)?
3. Has the final judgment in the applicant’s favour been fully and timeously enforced? If not, has there been a violation of Article 6 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention (see Liseytseva and Maslov, cited above)?
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