urse to the first three suggested remedies. In particular, the Government failed to spell out how a complaint to the Rostov Regional Qualification of Judges Board could have expedited the impugned proceedings (see Kormacheva v. Russia, No. 53084/99, §§ 61 - 64, 29 January 2004, and Mikhaylovich v. Russia, No. 30019/05, § 21, 12 February 2009). The Government also failed to refer to provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure which would have allowed the applicant company to appeal against the adjournment of the hearings. Furthermore, the Government failed to explain why, in order to ensure the right to a fair trial within a reasonable time, the applicant company should have appealed against the court's decisions to carry out the expert examinations requested by all of the plaintiffs, including itself (see §§ 7 and 21 above) and how replacing the experts could have accelerated the completion of the examinations. As to the fourth and last avenue of redress referred to by the Government, it should be noted that any issue of the non-enforcement of a final judgment is beyond the scope of the present case. The Court therefore dismisses the Government's non-exhaustion plea.
28. It further notes that the application is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention and is not inadmissible on any other grounds. It must therefore be declared admissible.
B. Merits
29. The period to be taken into consideration began on 31 July 1998 when the applicant company lodged its action with the Kuybyshevskiy District Court and ended on 8 February 2006 with the final judgment of the Rostov Regional Court. It thus lasted approximately seven years and seven months at two levels of jurisdiction.
30. The Court reiterates that the reasonableness of the length of proceedings must be assessed in the light of the circumstances of the case and with reference to the following criteria: the complexity of the case, the conduct of the applicant and the relevant authorities and what was at stake for the applicant in the dispute (see, among many other authorities, Frydlender v. France [GC], No. 30979/96, § 43, ECHR 2000-VII).
31. It is noted that in the present case the Government argued that the domestic courts examined the applicant company's claim within a reasonable time. They relied on three groups of arguments, which will be examined below.
1. Complexity of the case
32. First of all, the Government indicated that there had been a large number of participants, that is to say four plaintiffs, two respondents and one third party and that the plaintiffs, their representatives and witnesses had all resided in other regions. The District Court had had to rely on the assistance of the competent court of a neighbouring region in order to take evidence from the witnesses residing there.
33. They further pointed to the considerable financial value of the plaintiffs' claims which had meant that the District Court had had to check the veracity of a significant amount of material. The conducting of the two expert examinations had been a further complicating factor.
34. Finally, the Government stated that the parallel progression of a related administrative case, the outcome of which was of significant importance for the resolution of the present civil dispute, had rendered the stay of the civil proceedings unavoidable and that domestic courts at two levels of jurisdiction had been involved in the examination of the case.
35. The Court accepts the Government's argument that the proceedings in question were rather complex as regards the procedural and factual aspects. However, taken on its own, the complexity of the civil dispute cannot justify the seven years and seven months taken for its judicial examination (see Kesyan v. Russia, cited above, § 54).
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