he civil court indicated that the company's title had not been contested before the commercial court. As the Court has already noted above, the commercial court decisions indeed contained no findings as to the title to the fuel in question.
36. Furthermore, the Court notes that there was no other judicial decision refuting the company's title to the fuel. No court invalidated the purchase or assignment agreements in the present case. Neither does it appear that Russian law prevented the assignment of claims arising under tort law, including those engaging State liability. Although the Court notes that the 1998 purchase contract was adduced apparently for the first time only in the 2003 proceedings, it cannot but note as well that the civil court furnished no explanation as to why this contract contradicted the conclusions made during the criminal investigation, which resulted in the discontinuation of the criminal proceedings for forgery against the company director. There is no indication that the criminal inquiry resulted in any finding that the title to the fuel had been conferred on an entity other than the company in question.
37. Lastly, it is noted that Article 385 of the Civil Code required the person or entity making an assignment to supply the new creditor with the documents certifying the assignor's claims (see paragraph 23 above). The applicant was provided with a copy of the purchase contract dated 2 November 1998. It is also noted that under the assignment agreement dated 26 October 2001, as amended on 25 November 2001, the company transferred title to the seized fuel to the applicant, including a claim in respect of any damage or loss caused by the authorities on account of the seizure of the fuel, as well as a claim for compensation in respect of unjustified enrichment on the same account and a claim for restitution of the fuel. In the Court's opinion, the applicant could not have been required in the circumstances of the case to furnish any further documents certifying the validity of the claim assigned to him.
38. Being sensitive to the subsidiary nature of its role, the Court nevertheless is not bound by the findings of domestic courts and may depart from them where this is rendered unavoidable by the circumstances of a particular case (see, for instance, Matyar v. Turkey, No. 23423/94, § 108, 21 February 2002, and Khamidov v. Russia, No. 72118/01, § 135 et seq., ECHR 2007-... (extracts)). In the circumstances of the case, the Court is satisfied that the applicant could be considered as having an enforceable claim against the authorities on the basis of the assignment agreement.
39. Thus, Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 is applicable in the present case and the applicant may in this respect claim to be a victim within the meaning of Article 34 of the Convention.
3. Conclusion
40. The Court concludes that this complaint is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention. It further notes that it is not inadmissible on any other grounds. It must therefore be declared admissible.
B. Merits
1. Submissions by the parties
41. The applicant argued that the seizure of the fuel had been unlawful because there had been no decision issued by an investigator or prosecutor under Article 84 of the RSFSR Code of Criminal Procedure (CCrP) (see paragraph 25 above). Furthermore, the decision to discontinue the proceedings against Mr P had not included a ruling on what was to happen to the fuel, in breach of Article 85 of the CCrP. Article 84 of the CCrP governed relations between the authorities, the safe keeper of movable property and its owner, where the property in question was attached as physical evidence in criminal proceedings. The fuel in question had not constituted such evidence. The retention of the fuel thereafter amounted
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