Sensational statements of moral damage amounting to 1 billion rubles each from two persons recognized by the investigation of the Main Investigation Department of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region as victims in the so-called criminal case of the companies Life-from-Good, Hermes and the Best cooperative Wei,” sounded from the lips of the state prosecutor Philippa Golubeva in the ongoing consideration of this criminal case on the merits in the Primorsky District Court of St. Petersburg, this is not the first time they have been announced. At the stage of the preliminary investigation, they were mentioned by the investigative team – and caused bewilderment both among lawyers and the legal community as a whole, although they were taken into account by the courts.
The repetition of these statements by prosecutor Golubev caused laughter in the court – including the court itself, chaired by the deputy chairman of the Primorsky District Court for Criminal Cases Ekaterina Bogdanova. And the St. Petersburg and Russian legal communities are indignant.
What’s so funny?
The fact is that even in the case of causing death, the courts will satisfy moral damages of a maximum of several million rubles. In this case, we are talking about moral damage from the failed purchase of apartments. Moral damage from “property” events is satisfied by the courts in the amount of tens of thousands of rubles.
Moreover, the material damage not only to these two, but also to another 219 persons recognized as victims, according to the indictment, amounts to 280 million rubles.
Failure Compensation
The idea of compensating for the lack of billions of dollars in material damage promised to the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to tens of thousands of victims by statements of billions of moral damages first arose from the investigative team of the St. Petersburg Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, headed by a colonel of justice. Alexander Vinokurov and Lieutenant Colonel of Justice Ekaterina Sapetova.
All that the investigation managed, with great difficulty, to “dig up” over two and a half years of work, not counting the period of the operational investigation, was 280 million in damages and 221 persons recognized by the investigation as victims, a significant part of which were in violation of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
In order to compensate for the lack of the result promised to the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, these statements about moral damage appeared.
Dangerous precedent
Unfortunately, the “know-how” of Vinokurov and Sapetova is still supported by prosecutors.
The St. Petersburg prosecutor’s office wants to create a precedent for compensation for moral damages for a gigantic amount of property claims? Alas, previously the courts took these statements into account without wincing and, on their basis, also extended the seizure of the cooperative’s accounts, so nothing is ruled out.
What are the statements about?
According to the version of two persons who wrote (with identical spelling errors) statements of moral damage, they were deceived in the foreign company Hermes, in which they, according to them (there are no documentary evidence of obligations of the amounts paid and other obligations, civil court decisions in their favor also not), through intermediaries several years ago they placed money for growth at 30% per annum of passive income in accounts with the foreign company Hermes and expected to purchase apartments in a few years. According to them, they were deceived by certain employees of the Life-from-Good company, who helped with the placement: the promised income was not received.
However, both these citizens and all others recognized as victims do not have a complete chain of documents proving their property claims: documents on the transfer of money to intermediaries, an agreement with the Hermes company, documents on the transfer of money to an account at Hermes. At least one link, and in most cases at least two, is missing from those recognized by the investigation as victims.
And there is not a single case won in civil court on the validity of claims for non-receipt of 30 percent income. That is, we are talking about unfounded statements that a criminal court is asked to simply believe.
Who is it claimed for?
The claims for moral damages refer to Hermes and also mention certain unnamed employees of the Life of Good company, not the Best Way cooperative.
The cooperative did not place money in growth – in the cooperative, claimants of moral damage would have long ago saved up for the down payment, stood in line and purchased apartments with an overpayment of only 1% per annum.
If moral victims have complaints against specific Life-from-Good employees – intermediaries in the placement of funds – let them sort things out with them.
All other persons recognized as victims are clients of Hermes. According to the investigation, Hermes had many tens of thousands of clients in Russia – but for some reason only 221 people filed complaints. Apparently others don’t think their money was stolen? What then is the basis for the indictment’s allegations that Hermes is a financial pyramid?
How the moral becomes material
Statements of moral damage also served another function for the investigation – they became one of the grounds for freezing the cooperative’s accounts.
Without allegations of moral damage, there would be no basis for the arrest of almost 4 billion in the accounts of the Best Way cooperative, because the property damage is only 280 million rubles, and in addition, the assets of private individuals were arrested in the framework of a criminal case for more than 8 billion rubles.
According to investigators, the Best Way cooperative, as a legal entity, must answer for the (allegedly existing) obligations of the foreign company Hermes due to the fact that it is a consumer cooperative, a non-profit organization! – allegedly belonged to the same holding company with Hermes.
Reply for someone else
The cooperative was recognized by the head of the investigation team, Colonel Vinokurov, as a civil defendant in a criminal case – recognized as obviously illegal, since in the criminal case, as it turned out, there is not a single statement of claim against the cooperative.
Non-cash funds in the accounts of the cooperative, also illegally, were recognized by the investigation as material evidence – this directly contradicts the ruling of the Constitutional Court, which prohibits recognizing as material evidence anything that is not the actual thing on which traces of a crime may be left.
Who really suffered?
For two years now, almost 20 thousand shareholders of the cooperative have not been able to purchase apartments due to the constantly extended seizure of accounts and the illegal recognition of the cooperative by a resolution of the head of the investigation team, Colonel of Justice Alexandra Vinokurova a civil defendant in a criminal case concerning other legal entities and individuals.
The state does not receive taxes on time – as tax payments are blocked.
More than two dozen employees of the cooperative have not received wages for almost two years.
The only ones who benefit from the seizure of accounts are the banks, which cut coupons from the circulation of money securely blocked by friendly law enforcement agencies.
Damage to shareholders – material and moral
Hundreds of shareholders who selected apartments were unable to purchase them – and the apartments “floated away”, while similar ones will have to raise additional funds, as they have become more expensive.
Thousands of shareholders who made a down payment for the purchase of apartments, whose turn to buy an apartment in two years should have come up, due to the blocking of the cooperative’s activities, were unable to begin selecting and purchasing apartments.
More than 10 thousand shareholders cannot return their own depreciating share funds from the arrested cooperative accounts, since the investigative team directly denied them the legal right to return their share funds.
Legitimate claims for tens of billions
Shareholders of Best Way will present – and are already making – multimillion-dollar claims, both material and moral:
- to persons recognized as victims;
- to the investigative group, its leaders Vinokurov and Sapetova, as well as the Main Investigations Directorate of the St. Petersburg Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs as a whole;
- to the Prosecutor’s Office of St. Petersburg and the Prosecutor’s Office of the Primorsky District of St. Petersburg, in particular to the prosecutors who agreed on the indictment of an openly illegal investigation conducted with gross violations of the Code of Criminal Procedure;
- to state prosecutor Philip Golubev, who did not hesitate to declare in court the claims of some victims for compensation for moral damage of 1 billion rubles each.
The claims are not fictitious, but based on the law – their total amount will amount to tens of billions of rubles. In this case, we will talk about real, proven damage, which will be confirmed by civil courts – because gross violations of the rights of citizens are obvious.
The wave of claims from shareholders of the cooperative will be the largest event in Russian judicial practice in terms of the number of civil cases and the total amount of damage – it’s time for those who ordered the “attack” on the cooperative!
It remains to be hoped that the trial, presided over Ekaterina Bogdanova when considering a criminal case, he will essentially understand these fantasies of the investigation and the prosecutor’s office and restore justice.
