The case of the day is Calista Enterprises, Ltd. v. Tenza Trading, Ltd. (D. Or. 2014). Calista, a Seychelles company, sued Tenza Trading, a Cyprus company, and Tenza brought a counterclaim against Calista and Alexander Zhukov, who it alleged was Calista’s alter ego. Zhukov resided in the Czech Republic, but he had an address in Russia as well. Tenza moved under FRCP 4(f)(3) for leave to make service on Zhukov by alternate means, namely by email, by service on his US lawyers, and by mail to his home in the Czech Republic and to his address in Russia.
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Tag Archives: Czech Republic
Case of the Day: Diag Human v. Czech Ministry of Health
The case of the day is Diag Human S.E. v. Czech Republic Ministry of Health (D.D.C. 2014). Diag Human was a Liechtenstein corporation. Its business, in the late twentieth century, was helping “currency-deficient Eastern Bloc states … acquire modern blood plasma technology.” After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Diag Human began to do business in the Czech Republic. One of Diag Human’s most important commercial partners was Novo Nordisk. The claim was that the Czech minister of health sent a letter to Novo Nordisk “intended to dissuade Novo Nordisk from continuing to do business with Diag.” The letter, according to Diag Human, “contained statements expressing concerns about Diag Human’s business ethics and credibility.” As a result, Novo Nordisk stopped doing business with Diag Human, leading, according to Diag Human, to “the collapse of its business in the Czech Republic.”
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Case of the Day: Harvardsky Prumyslovy Holding v. Kozeny
The case of the day is Harvardsky Prumyslovy Holding A.S. v. Kozeny (N.Y. App. Div. 2014). In the 1990s, when Czech state-owned enterprises were being privatized, citizens were given vouchers to purchase shares in some of the firms. The vouchers could also be assigned to investment privatization funds, which would invest them on the citizen-assignor’s behalf. Viktor Kozeny was criminally prosecuted in the Municipal Court of Prague for engaging in a scheme in which he solicited investment in funds, including Harvardsky Prumyslovy Holding, and then “looted the [funds], diverting the funds of many Czech investors to a series of shell companies in Cyprus.” Kozeny, at the time of the prosecution, was in the Bahamas, and the government there refused to extradite him. He was therefore prosecuted in absentia, found guilty of fraud, and sentenced to imprisonment for ten years and restitution in the amount of approximately $410 million to the fund and its shareholders. The amount was, according to the judgment, “compensation for damage to the victim” under Section 228(1) of the Czech Code of Criminal Procedure.
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