5.  The applicant company, Bulfracht Ltd., is a limited liability company incorporated under Bulgarian law with its head office in Sofia (Bulgaria). 6.  On 13 April 1990 company J.A. from Rijeka, a shipping agent, brokered a contract of carriage of goods by sea between the applicant company as the ship’s operator (carrier) and the Cypriot company TWS as the charterer. The applicant company undertook to transport a certain quantity of steel tubes from Odessa to Kaohsiung, while TWS assumed the obligation to pay the freight to the applicant company, amounting to 515,099.20 United States dollars (USD). It would appear that the freight was not paid and that on 15 May 1990 company J.A. sent a fax message to the applicant company, which the latter interpreted as the former undertaking to pay the freight as a guarantor. 7.  Since the freight had not been paid, on 15 April 1991 the applicant company brought a civil action in Rijeka Commercial Court (Trgovački sud u Rijeci) against company J.A., seeking payment of USD 515,099.20. 8.  On 26 September 2000 the Rijeka Commercial Court dismissed the applicant company’s action, finding that the text of the fax message of 15 May 1990 could not be interpreted as giving rise to any obligation on the part of the defendant. 9.  On 6 July 2004 the High Commercial Court (Visoki trgovački sud Republike Hrvatske) dismissed the applicant company’s appeal and upheld the first-instance judgment. 10.  On 20 October 2004 the applicant company lodged an appeal on points of law (revizija) against the second-instance judgment. 11.  On 27 April 2006 the Supreme Court (Vrhovni sud Republike Hrvatske) declared inadmissible ratione valoris the applicant company’s appeal on points of law, as it found that the value of the subject matter of the dispute was below the statutory threshold of HRK 500,000. In doing so it reasoned as follows:
“The exchange rate between the US dollar and the domestic currency on 15 April 1991, that is, on the day the action was brought, was 14.2694 [former Yugoslav] dinars [YUD] to USD 1, which for USD 515,099.20 amounted to [YUD] 7,350,156.53... After conversion of the amount sought by the plaintiff, pursuant to the [relevant] legislation, the value of the subject matter of the dispute in the present case is HRK 7,350.16.” 12.  On 12 March 2008 the Constitutional Court (Ustavni sud Republike Hrvatske) dismissed a constitutional complaint lodged by the applicant company and served its decision on the company’s representative on 7 April 2008. The relevant part of that decision reads as follows:
“In the constitutional complaint the complainant alleged violation of the constitutional right to a fair hearing guaranteed by Article 29 paragraph 1 of the Constitution.
...
In the present case the Constitutional Court finds that the contested decision of the Supreme Court was rendered in the proceedings conducted in accordance with the law, on the basis of valid application of the substantive law.
The Constitutional Court therefore holds that that the proceedings which preceded those before the Constitutional Court were conducted in a manner which enabled the complainant to have a fair hearing and did not result in a violation of the constitutional right guaranteed by Article 29 paragraph 1 of the Constitution.”