Lithuanian Ministry of the Interior v Asov-Don Company

• Date: 21 December 1931
• Docket Number: Case No. 78
• Court: Supreme Court (Lithuania)

Lithuania, Supreme Court.

Case No. 78

Lithuanian Ministry of the Interior

and

Asov-Don Company.

Jurisdiction — Extraterritorial Effect of — Russian Nationality Decrees — Effect of Treaty of Peace Transferring Russian State Property in Lithuania to the Lithuanian State.

The Facts.—This case turned on the interpretation of Article X of the Peace Treaty between Lithuania and Soviet Russia of July 12, 1920,1 by virtue of which certain categories of Russian property situated in Lithuania were transferred to the latter. In the present action the Lithuanian Minister for the Interior asked for a declaration that, as the result of that provision, certain land belonging to the defendants, the Asov-Don Commercial Bank, a Russian company dissolved in consequence of Soviet legislation, was the property of Lithuania. It was contended on behalf of the defendants that the Russian

decrees had no effect in Lithuania and that the Soviet Government could not therefore transfer to Lithuania property which that Government never possessed. The District Court decided in favour of the Ministry of the Interior. On appeal before the Supreme Court

Held: that the appeal must be dismissed. The terms of the Treaty were clear. The question of the extraterritorial effect of Russian legislation was not relevant seeing that the...