The prosecutor's office provides assistance in protecting the interests of Belarusian exporters

The participation of the prosecutor in economic proceedings is an effective means of strengthening legality in the economic sphere. Upon detection of violations of the law, the prosecutor, in accordance with Article 66 of the Code of Economic Procedure, has the right to file a claim with the economic court in order to protect state and public interests, as well as the interests of economic entities.

The need for prosecutorial intervention is particularly acute when violations are detected in the sphere of foreign economic activity, as the exercise of the right to judicial protection by domestic exporting enterprises is burdened by the need to incur additional costs in the form of paying state duty. At the same time, the recognition and enforcement of decisions of Belarusian economic courts in foreign countries does not always guarantee real compensation for incurred expenses.

In this regard, the prosecutor's offices of the Vitebsk region constantly provide assistance to Belarusian supplier organizations in matters of recovering overdue foreign accounts receivable.

For example, in order to protect the interests of a major Belarusian enterprise for the extraction and processing of dolomite raw materials, the regional prosecutor's office filed a claim against a subject of the distribution network in the territory of the Republic of Lithuania.

Based on the results of the inspection conducted by the prosecutor's office, it was established that the Lithuanian counterparty, acting as a dealer under an agreement concluded in 2013, began to commit violations of contractual discipline in the form of payment delays for supplied products starting from 2017, and a portion of the goods supplied in 2018 for a total amount of 84,062.76 euros remained entirely unpaid.

Pre-trial proceedings did not yield the desired results; the dealer acknowledged the existing debt, but citing financial difficulties, did not fulfill the payment obligations for the supplied goods.

The consideration of the prosecutor's claim in the economic court lasted more than six months and was complicated by the language barrier between the countries, the refusal of the competent authority of Lithuania to execute the judicial request to notify the defendant of the summons to court, as well as

beginning of the restructuring procedure concerning a Lithuanian enterprise.

By the decision of the Vitebsk Regional Economic Court dated 19.07.2019, the prosecutor's claims were satisfied, and the defendant was ordered to pay the plaintiff over 92 thousand euros of principal debt and late payment penalties, as well as expenses incurred in connection with the translation of documents into Lithuanian.

Based on the results of the first half of 2019, prosecutors of the Vitebsk region have already filed 5 lawsuits in the interests of Belarusian supplier organizations to recover overdue foreign accounts receivable totaling the equivalent of 400 thousand Belarusian rubles. Work in this direction will continue in the future.

Deputy Head of the Department for Supervision
of Legislation Enforcement and
Legality of Legal Acts
of the Regional Prosecutor's Office
Dmitry Kudryavtsev