Bulgaria has reached an out-of-court settlement over the use of real estate property in the downtown of the German capital Berlin, the Foreign Ministry has announced.

The court case has been initiated a the building on 62 Friedrichstrasse, one of the top streets in Berlin, which has been used by the Bulgarian commercial representation.

The building was in former East Berlin, and was granted to the Bulgarian diplomatic corps in 1951. It was restituted to the Witt family in 1994 but the Bulgarian state continued to collect the rent of the building where Dresdner Bank is one of the tenants.

Under the “Thomas Witt vs. The Republic of Bulgaria” case, a first-instance German court had sentenced Bulgaria to pay EUR 11,646 M for using property that had been restituted to its owners, plus the interest on that sum.

Under the out-of-court settlement, which is the result of two-month talks with representatives of the Witt family, Bulgaria will have to pay only EUR 10,5 M in total, without any additional fees or paying off interest.

In addition, the settlement stipulates that, taken into account the complicated financial situation of the country, the payment of EUR 10,5 M would be made through several installments within 2010.

Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry has stressed that the settlement saved the country more than EUR 4,5 M of potential additional fees (including the interest).

In addition, Bulgaria evades the fate of being sentenced by the civic court of a foreign nation through a final ruling to its detriment, which would harm its international image.

The Foreign Ministry has reminded that it was its previous administration under which Bulgaria had been sentenced by the first-instance German court.

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