Vehicle embezzled in Italy and recovered in Germany – our client successfully fights for his property

In a cross-border case of vehicle embezzlement, a high-value vehicle that was stolen in Italy last year had been recovered in Germany. The owner, a company based in Italy, contacted our law firm to arrange for the return of its vehicle.

The vehicle was properly registered in Italy before it was embezzled by a lessee and taken out of the country. It was only through notification from the Italian law enforcement authorities that it became known that the vehicle had been seized by the German police – apparently as part of an ongoing investigation.

On behalf of our client, we submitted a request to the public prosecutor's office for the release of the vehicle. The ownership was comprehensively documented, including by means of an extract from the Italian vehicle register (PRA), the Italian vehicle registration document, and the original purchase invoice.

Despite the clear legal situation, the public prosecutor's office could not initially clarify the question of ownership in favour of our client. We therefore objected to the public prosecutor's decision to release the vehicle to the last custodian and requested that an investigating judge review the decision. The judge rightly found in his decision that the vehicle had not been acquired in good faith. The appeal against this decision was unsuccessful. As a result, our client was granted the return of the vehicle, which she was then able to return to Italy.

The legal assessment of the acquisition of ownership is of particular importance here. While under German law, the acquisition of embezzled vehicles in good faith is possible under certain conditions, Italian civil law expressly excludes this in the case of registered motor vehicles.

The decisive provision here is Article 43 of the EGBGB (German Private International Law), according to which property rights are governed by the law of the country in which the property was located at the relevant time - i.e. at the time of the alleged purchase

- in this case Italy. This means that a bona fide acquisition by a third party would not be possible under Italian law, so that our client was still to be regarded as the owner.

This case shows once again how important it is to have precise knowledge of international civil law provisions, especially when property issues have to be assessed across borders. As an international law firm, we regularly assist clients in enforcing their rights across national borders and recovering property that has been unlawfully taken away from them.

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