MORE RUSSIAN REAL ESTATE GOES UNDER THE HAMMER Public Auction takes place in Cologne, Germany on November 19, 2013

PRESS RELEASE

Franz J. Sedelmayer vs. Russian Federation

 

MORE RUSSIAN REAL ESTATE

GOES UNDER THE HAMMER

 

Public Auction takes place in Cologne,

Germany on November 19, 2013

 

The Kremlin is faced with another foreclosure:  Another part of the Russian Federation owned complex in the city of Cologne goes under the hammer.

 

Instead of simply paying the debt the Kremlin uses a Russian state owned enterprise to place and pay the winning bid. Why?  The Kremlin hopes to save face in public and wants to discourage other creditors, even though Sedelmayer will be paid in any event and consequently the result will be all the same!  One wonders which Kremlin brain surgeon came up with this idea!

 

This will be already the sixth time Russian federation assets will be subject to a public auction over the sovereign nation’s refusal to pay debts derived from an arbitral award rendered under a bilateral investment treaty between the Russian Federation and the Federal Republic of Germany.  A seventh auction will follow on February 6, 2014 in Cologne. An eighth auction will take place in spring 2014 in Stockholm, Sweden.

 

Russia’s continuous categorical refusal to abide by binding and final judgments of international and municipal tribunals makes the international news and thus serves as a vivid reminder the Russian Federation is not fit to be qualified as a nation governed by and observing the rule of law.  See link:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2NrEt48Hyw

 

 

Time: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 at 09:30h

Location: Amtsgericht Köln (City Court) 

Groundfloor, Room 18

Reichensperger Platz 1, 50670 Cologne, Germany 

Real Estate to be auctioned: Friedrich-Engels-Strasse 5

 

Background:  Franz J. Sedelmayer, a German citizen residing in France, has obtained dozens of Swedish and German judgments and also a Swedish arbitral award against the Russian Federation for several million US-Dollars between 1998 and 2013, under the auspices of the Stockholm Arbitration Institute and public courts in Sweden and Germany.  The initial arbitration case concerned the illegal expropriation of Sedelmayer’s holdings in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 1995 by the late Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Russia has since categorically refused to compensate this creditor. Sedelmayer managed to auction off other Russian Federation property in Germany, making him the only successful private creditor of Russia to date. The former Russian Trade Mission in Lidingö, Sweden is currently also in foreclosure with an auction date to be scheduled in early 2014.

 

Numerous counter-claims brought by Russia against Sedelmayer in the European courts have all been dismissed with prejudice. Russia also failed to enforce frivolous tax claims brought against Sedelmayer in the public courts in Europe.

 

Germany traditionally applies the doctrine of restrictive immunity allowing compulsory enforcement into assets a foreign state holds in Germany as long as those assets are being used for commercial purposes. Germany’s Constitutional Court handling three Russian Federation applications against the creditor Sedelmayer held that the public auction of the former Trade Mission is legal and is not protected by sovereign immunity.

 

Sweden's highest court, the Högsta Domstulen, has also held that Russia enjoys no immunity from execution concerning her former Trade Mission in Lidingö, Sweden. Russia had unsuccessfully claimed the former Trade Mission to be an integral part of her embassy in Sweden and thus inviolable.