 |
France Releases Russian Yacht
France Monday released the Russian yacht "Sedov" which was seized on July 13 in the western French port of Brest at the request of a Swiss company which accuses the Russian state of owing it 450 million French francs (66 million U.S. dollars) of debt.
The Court of Great Investigation of Brest decided to lift the seizure on "Sedov," which is an 80-year-old, 117-meter and four-mast white yacht from the Murmansk Military Technology University in northern Russia.
The president of the tribunal,Bertrand Louvel,ordered an "immediate, entire and definite" lifting of the seizure of the yacht.
The yacht left the quay of Brest at 20:00 local time (1800 GMT) with all its 176-man crew and staff, including 100 cadets and 20 teenagers, according to Agence France-Presse.
The Swiss import-export company, Noga, says that Russian state has broken a contract under which it is allowed to seize Russian state properties everywhere to win back the debt owed by Moscow.
The Russian state failed to pay for the food it sent to Russia in 1992, said Noga, which has won a case against Russia in both an arbitrary court in Sweden and a court in Paris.
As a result, the French judicial authorities froze some banking accounts of the Russian diplomatic representations in France and a French bailiff seized "Sedov" when it arrived in Brest to attend an international sea festival.
In Monday's verdict, the court in Brest said that although the yacht is run by the Murmansk Military Technology University, it is not a patrimony of the university.
Moreover, the university is also autonomous, both judicially and morally, of the Russian state, said the court verdict. Therefore, "Sedov" cannot be seized under the Russian civil code, said the verdict.
Meanwhile, the court condemned Noga to pay 500,000 francs (7,350 dollars) in damages and interests to the Murmansk Military Technology University and 250,000 francs (3,675 dollars) in damages and interests to the organizers of the Brest sea festival.
In This Section
|