Legal win in Kaunas Lagoon marina case: TBSA to tear down illegal structure

Kaunas City Municipality has won a victory in the matter of Kaunas Lagoon marinas, in which the Association of Sailing Yacht Owners (TBSA) had been arguing the case for its private marina that had been installed 17 years ago and had grown seven times in length since, demanding that the marina of Kaunas City Municipality be dismantled.

TBSA had also been seeking to judicially legalise its current free and unrestricted use of state-owned shore land and the new infrastructure that the municipality had built on it.

The municipality filed a counterclaim, asking that the attachment of the TBSA marina to the state-owned land, to which the municipality is a legal possessor, and its continued extension be recognised illegal, and the TBSA marina be detached and removed lest it stands in the way of installing a number of public marinas the municipality had plans for.

The court of first instance ruled that TBSA’s marina had been attached to the state-owned land illegally and without the consent of the then possessor of the land. Furthermore, the court found the marina’s extension to a length of 175 metres illegitimate. The court obligated the association to detach the marina from the state-owned land lot and move it out of the way of the projects envisioned by the Kaunas City Municipality. Moreover, the court banned TBSA and its members from using the lot and obligated them to remove all things, including ships, ship trailers, and other items belonging to TBSA and its members from the lot.

Achieving the victory in the court of first instance took a staggering 10 hearings that involved poring over complex and highly specific legal matters pertaining to the regulation of the Code of Inland Water Transportation, changes in the regulation, over a long period of time, of rights to water, land, and the installation of marinas, and many other issues.

The matter also had the National Land Service, the Building Inspectorate, and the Transport Safety Administration as co-defendants.

The court satisfied the municipality’s counterclaim in its full extent.

Early this year, the above court decision was upheld by Kaunas Regional Court. The court decision has since then become enforceable.

In this matter, Kaunas City Municipality was represented by the law firm Ellex Valiunas. The Ellex Valiunas team working on the case included expert Nijolė Vaičiūnaitė, associate partner Edvardas Racius, and senior associate Aušra Zabulionytė.