Another Disciplinary Procedure
Opened against Judge
Roumyana Chenalova


Sofia, February 9 (BTA) - The Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) on
Monday opened a second disciplinary procedure against Sofia City
Court (SCC) judge Roumyana Chenalova upon a proposal by Justice
Minister Hristo Ivanov.

The proposal was prompted by findings about Panayot Velkov, a
temporary trustee-in-bankruptcy appointed by Chenalova in
several commercial cases, and by an alert from the United
Bulgarian Bank about the way the judge has handled four
commercial cases.

The first disciplinary procedure against Chenalova was
instituted by SJC on December 17, 2014 in connection with a
bankruptcy case against two Bulgarian subsidiaries of France's
Belvedere Group: Belvedere Distribution and Domain Menada.
French Ambassador to Sofia Xavier Lapeyre de Cabanes has
expressed doubts about the manner in which the case had been
assigned to Chenalova and accused Velkov, appointed by the judge
as a temporary trustee-in-bankruptcy for the two companies, of
abusing the law so as Belvedere would be dispossessed of its two
Bulgarian subsidiaries even after they paid up their alleged
debts to the alleged creditors.

In January 2015, the SJC suspended Chenalova as SCC judge for
six months on account of this disciplinary procedure, which is
also looking into possible bias shown by Chenalova about the
Belvedere case in a public statement. A third breach concerns
the delay of nearly 50 cases allocated to Chenalova. PK/VE


/СН/