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Court agreed with Aivar Pilv regarding ungrounded claim for compensation of damages in amount of 200,000 Euro
Based on the 07.11.2018 judgment of Tallinn District Court, a previous judgment of Harju County Court that found the accused persons guilty pursuant to Section 384 (1) of the Penal Code (knowing damaging of company’s solvency) and satisfied a claim in amount of 200,000 Euro against the accused persons and a civil respondent (client of LEADELL Pilv) was annulled. By filing the civil claim, compensation of damages caused through dispossession of trademarks had been applied. Tallinn District Court found the accused persons not guilty and refused to review the civil claim.
Initially the first degree court established the guilt of management board members of a company in unjustified give-away of debtors’ assets, thus causing an insolvency of the debtor. The second degree court took a standpoint that the accused persons have neither concluded a harmful contract nor violated the responsibility to follow proprietary interests of the company. According to Tallinn District Court, evidence was lacking to prove that the intention of the accused persons was to damage the interests of the company, or that the establishment of a subsidiary company and the related transfer of assets was not performed in the interest of the company.
Previously Harju County Court had terminated criminal proceeding against the client of LEADELL Pilv based on the principle of practicality (guilt of a person is not major, public procedural interest is lacking and compensation of damages caused by the alleged crime was not claimed from the person). However, the first degree court included the person into the criminal proceeding as a civil respondent to resolve the claim for damages and ordered the civil respondent in solidarity with the accused persons to compensate the damages in amount of 200,000 Euro.
Tallinn District Court agreed with the standpoints provided in the appeal by senior associate Aivar Pilv and established that the county court had significantly violated procedural requirements by re-involving the person into the proceeding as a civil respondent and by reviewing the statement of claim. The district court also ordered procedural costs in amount of 28,000 Euro to be refunded to the client of LEADELL Pilv.
The decision can be appealed to the Estonian Supreme Court within 30 days.
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