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issued by the Registrar of the Court ECHR 205 (2014) 09.07.2014 Forthcoming Grand Chamber judgment concerning "old" foreign currency savings deposited in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia The European Court of Human Rights will be delivering a Grand Chamber judgment in the case of Alisi and Others v. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia and "The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" (application no. 60642/08) at a public hearing on Wednesday 16 July 2014 at 4 p.m � local time � in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg. The case concerns the applicants' inability to recover "old" foreign-currency savings � deposited with two banks in what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina � following the dissolution of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). Principal facts The applicants, Emina Alisi, Aziz Sadzak, and Sakib Sahdanovi, are nationals of Bosnia and Herzegovina who were born in 1976, 1949 and 1952, respectively, and live in Germany. Emina Alisi is also a German national. They complain that they were unable to withdraw their foreign-currency savings deposited before the dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia with the Ljubljanska banka Sarajevo and the Tuzla branch of the Investbanka. Until 1989/90, the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) made it attractive for its citizens to deposit foreign currency with its banks. They earned high interest and a State guarantee was to be activated at the request of the bank in case of bankruptcy or "manifest insolvency". The depositors were also entitled to collect their savings from the banks at any time, with accrued interest. With the 1989/90 reforms, Ljubljanska Banka Sarajevo became a branch of Ljubljanska Banka Ljubljana (a Slovenian-based bank) and the latter took over the former's rights, assets and liabilities. Investbanka became an independent bank with its headquarters in Serbia and a number of branches in Bosnia and Herzegovina, including the Tuzla branch. After the disintegration of the SFRY in 1991/92, foreign currency deposited beforehand was customarily referred to as "old" or "frozen" foreign-currency savings in the successor States. After the savings remained frozen for various periods of time after the disintegration of the SFRY, the successor States agreed to repay some of them. However, the applicants' savings have remained frozen. In the framework of the negotiations for the Agreement on Succession Issues, four rounds of negotiations regarding the distribution of the SFRY's guarantees of "old" foreign-currency savings were held in 2001 and 2002. As the successor States could not reach an agreement, in September 2002 the Bank for International Settlements ("the BIS") informed them that it would not be further involved in the matter. Complaints and procedure Relying on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property) to the European Convention on Human Rights, the applicants alleged that they had not been able to withdraw their "old" foreigncurrency savings deposited with two banks (the Sarajevo branch of Ljubljanska Banka Ljubljana and the Tuzla branch of Investbanka) since the dissolution of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). Relying on Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) and Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) of the Convention, they complained that they had not had at their disposal an effective remedy for their complaints. The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 30 July 2005. On 17 October 2011, the Court declared the application admissible. In its Chamber judgment of 6 November 2012, the Court unanimously held that there had been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 and a violation of Article 13 by Serbia with regard to Mr Sahdanovi. It also held, by a majority, that there had been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 and a violation of Article 13 by Slovenia with regard to Ms Alisi and Mr Sadzak. On 18 March 2013, the case was referred to the Grand Chamber at the Serbian and Slovenian governments' request1. A Grand Chamber hearing took place in public in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, on 10 July 2013. This press release is a document produced by the Registry. It does not bind the Court. Decisions, judgments and further information about the Court can be found on www.echr.coe.int. To receive the Court's press releases, please subscribe here: www.echr.coe.int/RSS/en or follow us on Twitter @ECHRpress. Press contacts [email protected] | tel: +33 3 90 21 42 08 C�line Menu-Lange (tel: + 33 3 90 21 58 77) Tracey Turner-Tretz (tel: + 33 3 88 41 35 30) Nina Salomon (tel: + 33 3 90 21 49 79) Denis Lambert (tel: + 33 3 90 21 41 09) The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. 1 Under Article 43 of the European Convention on Human Rights, within three months from the date of a Chamber judgment, any party to the case may, in exceptional cases, request that the case be referred to the 17-member Grand Chamber of the Court. In that event, a panel of five judges considers whether the case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention or its protocols, or a serious issue of general importance, in which case the Grand Chamber will deliver a final judgment. If no such question or issue arises, the panel will reject the request, at which point the judgment becomes final. 2