LJUBLJANA (Slovenia), September 15 (SeeNews) – Slovenia demands 360 million euro ($404.9 million) in compensation from Croatia for the Zagreb-based defunct Ljubljanska Banka (LB) via a lawsuit lodged with the European Court of Human Rights, Slovenian media reported on Thursday.
Slovenia has decided to take its claim to the Strasbourg-based court, alleging that human rights were violated when LB bank failed to recover debt from Croatian companies incurred in the 1990s, news agency STA reported.
The Croatian judiciary prevented LB from recovering debt with intentionally drawn out court proceedings, arbitrarily affecting its assets, Slovenia claims.
The dispute over Ljubljanska Banka stemmed from the break-up of the former Yugoslavia when a new bank, Nova Ljubljanska Banka, was formed and Croatian depositors in LB received no compensation.
In 2014, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Slovenia needed to compensate the savers. Although it put in place a compensation mechanism, Slovenia claimed that Croatian companies owed money to LB which it was unable to recover since the bank's licence was revoked in Croatia.
The Slovenian government said last year that it would use all possible legal avenues to recover the claims.
($=0.889059 euro)