Austria Rejects Russia's Claims On Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company Building In Vienna

The Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company (UDP) has announced that a Vienna court has rejected a claim by representatives of Russia who have been trying for many years to evict UDP from buildings in the center of Vienna, Austria, the CFTS portal reports.

In 1975, the Soviet Embassy in Austria bought a building and land in the center of Vienna. The funds for purchasing the building and land were provided by the Danube Shipping Company, which used the acquired property for its operations. A few years later, another building was constructed next to the old one to house the shipping company's main office in Austria.

After Ukraine declared independence, the property remained under the control of the UDP, although the USSR was considered the formal owner.

Currently, the land and the buildings are valued at tens of millions of euros.

In 2008, the Russians changed the ownership of the building from the former Soviet Union to the Russian Federation. Lawyers for the Russian Federation argued that it was the Russian Federation that paid the debts of the former Soviet Union and that it was the sole successor of the Soviet Union. According to them, Russia is the sole successor of the Soviet Union because the former Soviet republics have renounced the external obligations of the former Soviet Union.

"However, we managed to convince the court to reject the claim of the Russians, recognize that Ukraine - as a successor state of the Soviet Union - is a co-owner of the property, and reject the claim that Russia is the sole successor of the Soviet Union. Therefore, the property remains under the control of UDP," the shipping company said.

According to the UDP, this is the first case in which a European court has recognized Ukraine as a co-owner of property located abroad.

The buildings in Vienna are not the only property the UDP has succeeded in retaining. One of the foreign properties of the Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company is a building on the embankment in Budapest. Immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine started, Hungarian businesspeople attempted to seize ownership of the building from the UDP, but they have failed so far.