Decision no. 976/2013

On 12 March 1938, the Ö. Aktiengesellschaft (Ö.-AG) was the owner of several properties in Bruck an der Leitha on which the sugar factory of the AG (“corporation”) was situated. The legal successors of the present applicants were among the shareholders of the Ö. AG. They were considered Jewish in accordance to the Nuremberg Laws of 1935.

By 1940, the German milling industrialist Clemens Au. had acquired the majority of the shares with the approval of the Property Transaction Office, dissolved the corporation and resumed the sugar factory’s operations as a sole proprietor. In 1942 he sold partial areas of the properties in Bruck an der Leitha with a total area of 15,015 m² to the German Reich, Reich Railway Assets, for 7,507 Reichsmark.

In 1947, the ownership title to these partial areas was recorded in the land register for the Republic of Austria, Railway Administration.

During the course of various restitution proceedings regarding the sugar factory in Bruck, the former shareholders of the Ö.-AG ceded their restitution claims to the Ö.-AG, which was to be re-established, to a consortium of Austria sugar factories for 118,685,000 Schilling. Once the Ö.-AG had been reestablished, the sugar factory in Bruck, including the properties in Bruck an der Leitha were restitution to the corporation with a settlement dated 15 January 1958.

An application filed in 1961 by the Ö.-AG for the restitution of the partial areas sold in 1942, which had been overlooked when concluding the settlement in 1958, was first rejected by the Financial Directorate for Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland and, following an appeal, dismissed by the Federal Minister of Finance.

The Ö.-AG was split into the current companies A. Stärke GmbH, A. Zucker GmbH and A. Internationale Verwaltungs- und Asset-Management GmbH.

On 17 January 2001, the partial areas subject of the application were wholly-owned by the Österreichische Bundesbahnen, whose sole shareholder on 17 January 2001 was the Republic of Austria.

In its juridical appraisal, the Arbitration Panel determined that the equity shares in the Ö.-AG had not been wholly-owned by the legal predecessors of the applicants on 12 March 1938. Therefore, with regard to this corporation, the special position of a sole shareholder was absent. As a result, the legal predecessors of the applicants had not previously owned of the partial areas subject of the application pursuant to Sec. 28 (1) item 1 of the Entschädigungsfondsgesetz (“General Settlement Fund Law” – GSF Law). Therefore, the applications for restitution of these partial areas had to be rejected and the further statutory requirements no longer needed to be examined.