A convict who embezzled 15 kilograms of gold was obligated to pay 3.1 million dirhams

The Civil Court of First Instance in Dubai ruled to oblige an Asian person to pay two men of the same nationality the sum of three million and 150 thousand dirhams, and the legal interest at 5% from the date the ruling became final until full payment, after it was proven that he had seized 15 kilograms of 24 carat gold that belonged to them.

The details of the case stated that the plaintiffs filed a report against the accused, and the Public Prosecution referred him to court on charges of embezzling funds given to him to harm the rightful owners of them. The Criminal Court ruled that he be imprisoned for six months, fined him 3.5 million dirhams, the value of what could not be seized, and deported from the state. The ruling was upheld on appeal and cassation, and it became final.

The civil court said in the merits of its ruling that liability for a harmful act requires the presence of three elements, namely error, damage, and causality, in accordance with the text of Article 282 of the Civil Transactions Law, which defined a harmful act as exceeding the limit that must be reached or falling short of the limit that must be reached, whether the act was positive or negative, intentionally or negligently.

She explained that the burden of proving the elements of tort liability falls on the injured person, but the ruling issued in the criminal case has binding authority before the civil court in what was decided in a necessary chapter regarding the occurrence of the act that constitutes the common basis between the two lawsuits, and in the legal description of the act and its attribution to its perpetrator, in accordance with Articles 269 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and 50 of the Law of Evidence, and on what was settled by the judiciary of the Dubai Court of Cassation.

She added that the final criminal ruling issued convicting the defendant of seizing 15 kilograms of 24-karat gold worth 3.5 million dirhams is valid before her, preventing the issue of error or its percentage from being re-examined, and it must be adhered to.

She pointed out that the defendant’s seizure of the gold resulted in the plaintiffs losing the value of the money and losing its benefit and investment since the date of the incident, in addition to the moral damage represented by the infringement on their property and their being forced to take the path of litigation to recover their rights.

It confirmed that estimating the elements of damage and the amount of compensation are matters of fact over which the trial court is independent, without an obligation to follow a specific mathematical standard, as long as it bases its ruling on justifiable reasons derived from the papers, and awards a total compensation amounting to three million and 150 thousand dirhams.

Regarding the interest request, the court explained that the late interest is considered compensation for the damage resulting from the delay in payment, and judicial custom has settled on calculating it at the rate of 5% annually, and it ruled that it be paid from the date the judgment became final until full payment, and obligated the defendant to pay fees, expenses, and attorney’s fees.