MOSCOW, March 7 – RAPSI. Moscow’s Simonovsky Court rescheduled on Wednesday for April 4 its hearing of the $33 million lawsuit filed against self-exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky and his partner Yuli Dubov.

The lawsuit was filed by the Samara Region governmen.

The delay was necessitated by the absence of both defendants and any report of their due notification.

The court ruled to send Berezovsky and Dubov new cables to their latest places of residence in Russia. If the court is advised that the addressees are absent at the place of their registration, the case will be heard in absentia.

Earlier the Moscow Region Court ordered Berezovsky to pay almost 8.5 million rubles ($304,000) to the Samara Region government as compensation for inflation losses in the embezzlement case.

In September 2009 the court sentenced Berezovsky, who resides in the UK, to 13 years in jail in absentia for embezzling 58 million rubles ($1.9 million) of LogoVAZ funds. Dubov was given a nine-year prison term.

Investigators maintain that in 1994 Berezovsky organized signing of a contract between AvtoVAZ and LogoVAZ to supply the latter with 20,000 cars. However, the cars were never paid.

Berezovsky lives in the UK where he was granted political asylum, although several criminal cases have been opened against him in Russia. The Russian authorities have sent several requests for Berezovsky's extradition. The UK has rejected the requests.