Legitimacy of Ownership of GENEX in Croatia the Third Time at the Auction

At the beginning of August the company from Belgrade, GENEX announced in Croatian Official Gazette the selling of 8 immovable estate that are at the territory of this country. On this list there are the hotel complex in Skaraba in Rovinj and Villa Rasica in Dubrovnik, as the business facilities in Opatija, Rijeka, Osijek and Zagreb. The media from Croatia, commented the news about the auction, pointed out that the most of these objects and properties have been already registered in the name of the new owners, so the future buyers will expect " the juridical fight" for the registration procedure of the property.

In the company GENEX, it was mentioned that it would not be the auction for selling the properties but only a kind of selling the rights of the ownership of the properties, because, the possible buyers could not even enter the properties. Croatia has adopted a law at the beginning of '90 about the change of entry of all the ownerships that were in property of phisical or legal entities from SFRJ into the Croatian people and legal entities. By the International Treaty on Successon, Amendum 6, that have been signed by all the ex members of the state of SFRJ in Vienna, all the property dispossessed this way, was supposed to be given back to its owners. This Treaty was ratified by both Governments, Serbian and Croatian, so there are the legal conditions that all the property owned by Genex in Croatia would be given back to its initial owner. The fact is, that the whole legal procedure carried out through the jurisdictional system of Croatia with possible intervention of International Court from Strasbourg, could last several years, but the company Genex has entered in the procedure of privatization and has a strong need of money as soon as possible, for the purpose of social program and for the recovery of the company.

For all the objects that are surpassing, according the market value, the amount of 200 mil US $, there still is a big interest of the potential buyers, but there are those legal obstrictions. Most of the objects owned by Genex, have changed the ownership in Croatia several times in the past years, so the legal procedure of defining the property rights will be very complicate.Mention only the example of Skaraba that is now registered as the ownership of Tobacco Factory Rovinj, bought from INA at the auction. They have very big plans for constructing the exclusive touristic complex at this area and waiting for the final city land plan of the Municipality of Rovinj. The business facilities in Zagreb are now in the ownership of Croatian Football Association, 747 sqm of business space in Rijeka are now the headquarters and werehouse of the oil company INA, that has bought these facilities from the company Petrol from Belgrade together with all the employees they held together with the facilities. The media in Zagreb suggested to the company Genex to solve all its property rights with the Government of Croatia and not with the new owners, and it is announced that some of the new owners will ask the cancellation of the published auction.