Building of Glas Javnosti seized

According to the latest verdict of the Commercial Court in Belgrade the building in Vlajkoviceva st 8 where the daily "Glas javnosti" and printers are located, is to be seized. "Glas javnosti" has issued the following statement on this occasion:

After many years of discrimination before the courts the "ABC Produkt" Company, as the representative of domestic and foreign private capital has lived experienced the latest evidence of legal instability and persecution. The verdict of the Commercial Court (V-P. no 996/2000) in Belgrade annuls an entire series of contracts over the past decade that were regulated by international rights and obligations of "ABC Produkt" and the former state company "Glas". This verdict does not only annul contracts up to ten years old, but also all the rights of "ABC Produkt" acquired by investing capital in accordance with these contracts in the past decade. Thus the court has ruled that "ABC Produkt" is to be throw out from the office building in Vlajkoviceva st. 8, where state company "Glas" was once located, together with all the other firms that it founded. The ruling annuls and confiscates all that "ABC Produkt" has invested in the former state company "Glas". The speed at which the case was tried (the entire trial lasted only twenty days, from charges to verdict, even though the it is a matter of a hundred million dinars, aprox. two million USD), testifies to how it was handled by the Commercial Court.

This ruling is a jewel in the lexicon of Serbian judicial absurdities and was made as the consequence of the illegal ruling of the Commercial Court in Belgrade imposing bankruptcy administration in "ABC Grafika". The bankruptcy administrator of "ABC Grafika" (which is the legal heir to the state company "Glas" that went broke ten years ago and was attached to the shareholding company ABC "Glas", today called "ABC Grafika") appointed by the same Commercial Court in Belgrade sued "ABC Produkt" before the Commercial Court in Belgrade, demanding the annulment of all contracts and eviction from the office building. The Commercial Court accepted all the charges annulling all the contracts, even though it is not in accordance with the law, and even though some of the contracts are outdated, and as such could not be the subject of any lawsuit. The Commercial Court ignored the fact that the case is not within its jurisdiction and did not give any mention of the possibility of appeal. Even though the court explanation admits that there are issues that are "too complicated or unclear for the court", it ruled according to unsupported assumptions instead of legally giving an explicit view.

What is clear and openly accomplished by such verdict and its foggy explanation? Beside the annulment and seizure of the entire 10-year investment of "ABC Produkt" into the former state company "Glas", the printers and numerous respected and independent papers that have been published there for years, are being evicted from Vlajkoviceva St. 8, as well as editorial of "Glas javnosti". This verdict ignores the fact that all the state capital of the former state company "Glas" has been preserved during the past ten years, the hardest in the history of the Serbian economy, and in the meantime the printing presses have survived, with new technologies, developed new contracts, keeping the existing jobs with great additional investments and labor.

In whose interest is it to destroy today, with such verdicts of the Commercial Court in Belgrade? How else can this move be described, but as the simple persecution of independent media and their printers? After ten years of investment, "ABC Produkt" has been given eight days to move out.

Founder of "ABC Produkt" and editor-in-chief of Glas javnosti daily Slavoljub Kacarevic

Source: Free Serbia

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