Company of Department stores Belgrade decided recently to sell the building in Podgorica, which has been involved in a court case for five years, and which is currently used by department store “Podgoricanka”. Veljko Barovic, director of “Podgoricanka”, said for Montena-business that the management of “Podgoricanka” strongly opposed this sale, since they claimed that it was their property. “We think that they should pay their debts by selling some other building in Serbia, since we have invested considerable financial means through our work within company, for which another department store could have been built,” said Barovic. During the court hearings on the mortgage, the worth of the building of “Podgoricanka” of 19.6 million DEM was mentioned. Barovic said that the company from Podgorica, after separation from the system of department stores “Belgrade” two and a half years ago through referendum, it was registered as an independent trade company “Podgoricanka”. “In 1969, employees decided on referendum that they wanted to join the system of Department stores “Belgrade”, and in 1998, it was decided to leave the system, in the same way. On February 2, 1999, we were registered in the Trade court of Montenegro, and the reason we left the system was its falling,” said Barovic. He said that the problems began after registration, because the company from Belgrade put “Podgoricanka” under mortgage on the basis of alleged credit that had been taken from a private bank in Belgrade, and of which they had seen nothing. “The Court of first instance made the decision on realization of the mortgage twice, so the management lodged a complaint and afterwards requested from the Supreme Court to make a just verdict,” said Barovic. He said that the complaint to the Supreme Court was lodged two months ago and that they expected that procedure to finish soon, since current situation prevented normal business activities. “”Podgoricanka”was built 20 years before the day it joined the system of Department stores “Belgrade”. We have the documentation from cadastre that it is the property of the Municipality of Podgorica and that the municipality gave the employees the right to use the department store that was then called “Nama”,” said Barovic.