MOSCOW, July 6 (RAPSI, Nikita Shiryayev) – The Moscow Commercial Court will consider a lawsuit lodged by Investory company demanding to collect from Russia’s media watchdog Roskomandzor and the Finance Ministry 5 million rubles ($79,600) in losses allegedly caused by Telegram messenger blocking on August 27, RAPSI reports from the courtroom on Friday.

The plaintiff says that the defendants’ actions resulted in a decline in the firm’s data-handling capacity. The caused damage was estimated at 10 million rubles ($158,300), however, the amount claimed was reduced to 5 million rubles.

Roskomnadzor denied allegations its actions infringed on the operation of web-based products of Google, such as Gmail, YouTube, Google.ru and others. The watchdog noted that these products were not on blacklists and Internet providers were not instructed to block them. As to the problems users experienced with respect to Google.ru, the watchdog stated that they could occur due to inferior filtration systems run by small-scale operators.

Earlier, the court dismissed the lawsuit twice.

On April 16, Roskomnadzor sent communications providers data on Telegram Messenger LLP websites for blocking.

Moscow’s Tagansky District Court ordered restriction of access to Telegram in Russia on April 13. The court tasked Roskomnadzor with putting a stop to sending and receiving messages in Telegram until the messenger fulfills its obligations by providing deciphering keys. The ruling came into force immediately.

According to the communications watchdog’s statement, Roskomnadzor received the Moscow court’s ruling and forwarded the relevant information to operators.