During the search as part of criminal proceedings, a significant amount of enterprise’s goods was withdrawn and arrested. After the arrest was cancelled, it turned out that the law enforcement officers did not know the location of the goods and could not return them. To recover damages for the missing goods the client sought assistance at Parkulab and Partners.
During the court proceedings in economic courts, it was found that the law enforcement agency was liable for the damage caused to the enterprise even in the absence of its fault in the loss of property. Despite the fact that the property had been lost without fault of the law enforcement agency, the defendant, the court validated the claims.
In addition to the claim for the recovery of the actual value of the lost property, the court also satisfied the claims for the recovery of lost profit.
A particular feature of the case was that the plaintiff did not obtain an interim judgment from the investigating judge which would acknowledge the illegal acts of the pre-trial investigation authority. We insisted that such a judgment was not obligatory, and the court, within the framework of the case for the recovery of damages, had to evaluate the legitimacy of the defendant’s actions independently.
The Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court recognized the justified legal position of the plaintiff and determined that the illegal actions of the state authority had to be identified during trials in economic courts, and not by separate judgments of courts taken in criminal proceedings.
Such a finding of law regarding the application of legal norms was presented in court practice for the first time. Later, it became the key precedent of this kind of cases. Within three years, the judgment on our case was cited by other courts in over 3000 similar cases.