MOSCOW, September 20 - RAPSI, Sergei Feklyunin. On Tuesday, the commercial court dismissed a suit by the Film Directors' Guild Trading House Forum-XXI for $27 million against the Moscow city government over its disruption of a luxury housing project in central Moscow, the Russian Legal Information Agency (RAPSI) reports from the courtroom.

According to the guild, who was acting as the plaintiff, the Moscow mayor's office signed investment contracts for the construction of an art center and hotel complex adjacent to the Christ the Savior Cathedral in central Moscow in 2000.

The Moscow city government and the development company entered into a 49-year lease agreement regarding the construction sites.

The guild maintains that, pursuant to a government resolution, it invested in the project engineering design and construction, but that Moscow authorities terminated the lease in 2005.

A city spokesperson argued that the statute of limitations had expired because the contract for the art center site was declared null and void by the Supreme Commercial Court in November 2006 and that a second contract termination was also upheld by the court in September 2007.