## Facts

- Imperial Russia issued bearer bonds and shares widely held by French investors; Soviet authorities later repudiated Tsarist debts.
- France and the Russian Federation entered a 1997 bilateral agreement providing a lump-sum settlement of certain pre-1945 reciprocal financial and property claims.
- The agreement limited covered claims to those belonging to France or to French natural or legal persons.
- French implementing measures created a census/registration and compensation process with a strict declaration deadline and exclusion from compensation for noncompliance.
- Eduardo José Kandyrine de Brito Paiva, a Portuguese national, inherited Imperial Russian bearer bonds and shares previously held by his French grand-uncle.
- Paiva sought registration of his claims under the French administrative scheme; the local treasury office refused because he lacked French nationality.
- The Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry rejected Paiva’s administrative appeal.
- Lower administrative courts rejected Paiva’s challenges; he sought cassation review before the Conseil d’État sitting in its full court formation.

## Issues

1. Whether an administrative act implementing a bilateral agreement may be annulled because the agreement or its implementing measures allegedly conflict with another treaty obligation binding on France, including the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and Protocol No. 1.
2. Whether limiting eligibility for compensation to French nationals violates ECHR property protections and the prohibition on discrimination (including Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 and Article 14).
3. What scope of review the administrative judge has over (a) the domestic procedure for introducing an international agreement and (b) the legality of implementing measures when multiple international commitments are invoked.

## Decision

- The Conseil d’État rejected Paiva’s cassation appeal and upheld the refusal to register his claim for compensation.
- The court reaffirmed that the administrative judge may review the regularity of domestic procedures for introducing an international agreement and the legality of administrative acts applying it.
- When an implementing act is challenged by reference to multiple treaties, the judge must first interpret the treaties to reconcile them; only if reconciliation is impossible may a true incompatibility be found with consequences for the implementing act’s legality.
- Applying that approach, the court concluded the nationality restriction in the settlement and its implementing measures did not violate the ECHR or Protocol No. 1 in the circumstances.
- The domestic statute and decree implementing the settlement were held compatible with France’s invoked international obligations; the ministerial and treasury refusals were therefore lawful.

## Legal Principles

- The administrative judge may verify domestic-law procedural regularity for bringing an international agreement into effect and may review the legality of administrative measures implementing treaty provisions.
- The administrative judge does not adjudicate the treaty’s validity in the international legal order; review focuses on the legality of domestic implementing acts within the domestic hierarchy of norms.
- When two international commitments are invoked against an implementing act, the judge must seek an interpretation that allows coexistence (reconciliation) before concluding that the obligations are incompatible.
- A bilateral, inter-state lump-sum settlement may define a limited class of beneficiaries; exclusion based on nationality may be lawful where it is inherent in the settlement’s object and structure and does not create an irreconcilable conflict with ECHR protections as applied.
- Long-disputed, repudiated sovereign-debt claims addressed through an inter-state settlement may be treated as not conferring an enforceable individual entitlement to compensation outside the settlement’s defined terms.

## Conclusion

The Conseil d’État sustained France’s refusal to register a non-French heir’s Imperial Russian bond claims under a bilateral settlement scheme and articulated a method for domestic review of overlapping treaty obligations: interpret and reconcile treaties where possible, and treat incompatibility as a last resort when reconciliation cannot be achieved.


Kandyrine de Brito Paiva (Imperial Russian Bonds), No. 303678 (Conseil d’État (Fr.) Dec. 23, 2011)