After almost six years of proceedings before various court instances in Montenegro, the municipality of Tivat has finally come to a position to return almost 1,5 million euros to its budget in due course, which was taken from it by a local businessman in court towards the end of the DPS rule in that city, in 2019.
This is a sum of as much as 1.456.000 euros that the Municipality paid to a resident of Tiv in February 2019. To Marko Glavočić, nephew of a businessman close to DPS By Gag Arsić, in the “Dalmacijavino” affair. Glavočić was also charged interest in the amount of 16.575 euros on this claim, which means that the Municipality is now trying to forcibly collect a total of 1.472.575 euros from him.
“The Constitutional Court of Montenegro, by its decision of 26 December 2024, accepted the constitutional appeal of the Municipality of Tivat and overturned the judgment of the Supreme Court of Montenegro of 25 November 2020. The overturned judgment confirmed the decisions of lower courts, by which the Municipality was obliged to pay compensation to Marko Glavočić for the seized real estate. Acting on the then final and enforceable judgment, the Municipality of Tivat paid Glavočić the amount of 1.472.575 euros. Since the judgment on the basis of which the payment was made was overturned, the Basic Court in Kotor, upon a motion for counter-enforcement, issued a decision ordering Marko Glavočić to return the said amount to the Municipality. Based on that decision, enforcement proceedings were initiated, which are being conducted with a public bailiff. Darko Rajković", said the legal representative of the Municipality in that case, lawyer Mladen Perunicic.
Peruničić said that the Constitutional Court's decision "confirmed the validity of the legal arguments of the Municipality of Tivat, and the proceedings continue before the first instance court, where we expect a positive outcome based on the established violations of rights."
"The priority of the Municipality of Tivat in the coming period is the return of the funds paid. In addition to the initiated enforcement procedure, the Municipality will use all available legal mechanisms to ensure the return of funds and prevent possible abuses in the enforcement procedure," said Perunićić.
Businessman Glavočić sued the Municipality in 2014 for “payment of compensation for nationalized and expropriated land”, for real estate that was once owned by the company “Dalmacijavino” from Split. The Municipality took the warehouse space and the surrounding land of about seven thousand square meters in Kukuljina from the ownership of “Dalmacijavino” in 1992 and later sold a part of it to the private company “Aurora” from Tivat. Glavočić bought the real estate from “Dalmacijavino” in January 2013 in a transaction led by his uncle, businessman Rado Gago Arsić, after which he sued the Municipality, which lost in the first-instance and second-instance proceedings before the courts in Kotor, Podgorica and Bijelo Polje. At the head of the Montenegrin judiciary at that time was the President of the Supreme Court Vesna Medenica, Godfather of Rade Gag Arsić.
In 2019, while it was still ruled by the DPS, the Municipality of Tivat, after the verdict of the Higher Court in Bijelo Polje became final and the money was immediately paid to Glavočić, which was particularly insisted on by the then Vice President of the Municipality and leader of the DPS Local Government. Siniša Kusovac, filed a review with the Supreme Court, which she later won, but in the meantime Glavočić had already taken 1,45 million euros from the city budget. The lawsuits and counterclaims between the two parties continued in the following years because the new city government of Tivat, led by the Civic List Narod bejdeđuje, which took over the management of Tivat from DPS in the fall of 2020, did not give up on trying to return to the budget the money that the businessman had withdrawn from her account based on the ruling of the court in Bijelo Polje.
Finally, the Municipality succeeded in this before the Constitutional Court, which in late December 2024 overturned the last Supreme Court ruling from November 2020, when Medenica was at its head, which again went in favor of Glavočić. The case is now before the Basic Court in Kotor, which should ensure enforcement, i.e. forced collection from Glavočić by blocking all of his accounts and assets.
As explained by the Municipality of Tivat in March 2019, at the time when he was being paid money according to the decision of the Higher Court in Bijelo Polje, Glavočić purchased their property in Tivat from the company "Dalmacijavino" from Split for 165 thousand euros in January 2013 - a warehouse of 495 square meters with surrounding land of 2.394 square meters.
By paying that price, he also purchased the right to assume the position of an authorized party in the process of returning a portion of the real estate owned by the Split-based company, an additional 4.366 square meters, which the Municipality of "Dalmacijavina", referring to the then applicable laws and regulations of the Government of Montenegro, seized in 1992. On that land, which has since been sold to two companies from Tivat for the purpose of bringing it into use according to the DUP (construction of the Kukuljina industrial zone), there are now several business and service facilities.
Although the Basic Court in Kotor rejected Glavočić's proposal in March 2015 to pay him an amount adequate to the seized property based on the illegally seized land of "Dalmacijavina", the Higher Court in Bijelo Polje overturned that decision and returned it to the first instance court for a new trial. The Kotor Court then issued a new decision in May 2018, determining that the Municipality must pay Glavočić 1.853.250 euros for an area of as much as 7.413 square meters that, according to them, belonged to "Dalmacijavina" in Kukuljina.
The municipality then filed an appeal again, and on December 25, 2018, the Higher Court in Bijelo Polje issued a final judgment, according to which it "partially accepted the plaintiff's claim" and ordered that Glavočić be paid 1.456.000 euros for land with a total area of 8.320 square meters, which, according to the Bijelo Polje court, was formerly owned by "Dalmacijavin".
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