Having examined a protest of the Prosecutor General, the Senate’s Department of Civil Cases annulled a decision of the Riga City Court which upheld the judgement of the Ukrainian court of first instance acknowledging the rights of private individuals to funds in the amount of USD 80.77 million kept in the accounts of several foreign companies in two Latvian commercial banks.

The Prosecutor General filed the protest against the decision of the Riga City Court, stating that the court had committed serious procedural violations. The protest was based on the fact that the Riga City Court correctly referred to and indicated the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters as an international agreement binding on the Republic of Latvia in this case, but in fact the court did not apply the legal norms contained in the aforementioned normative act, but rather those contained in another legal act – the Lugano Convention of 30 October 2007 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (hereinafter – the Lugano Convention).

Whereas, Ukraine is not a party to the Lugano Convention, and therefore the judge had no legal basis for finding that there were grounds for granting the application for recognition of the foreign court judgment.

The Senate's decision also emphasises that the Ukrainian court’s judgment contradicts a previous decision adopted in criminal proceedings in Latvia, which recognised the same funds as criminally obtained and transferable to the Latvian state, thereby ordering the confiscation of the funds, which is an independent obstacle to the recognition of the Ukrainian judgment.

The case will have to be re-examined by the Riga City Court.

Case No SPC-7/2025 (C771235324).

 

Kārlis Arājs
Communication adviser of the Supreme Court
Telephone: +371 67020302
E-mail: karlis.arajs@at.gov.lv