MOSCOW, February 21 - RAPSI, Sergei Feklyunin. The Moscow Commercial Court will hear on March 28 a defamation lawsuit filed by the Auchan retail group against News Media, the founder of the lifenews.ru portal.

The lawsuit centers upon the article about the tragedy in a Moscow family where two girls - four and seven years old - reportedly died after the entire family got poisoned with food bought at the Auchan store.

A family of four was hospitalized due to food poisoning on January 19. Сhildren died later at the hospital on January 24. Investigators opened a criminal case. The mother of the deceased children was soon discharged from hospital while her husband remained at the hospital for a while as doctors could not establish certain diagnose for him.

Forensic scientists failed to find any toxics in blood of the dead girls.

Auchan filed a lawsuit on February 10.

The Auchan international retail group was established in 1961 by Gerard Mulliez. It runs over 1,200 outlets in 13 countries. Auchan has operated in Russia since 2002, where it has 25 Auchan megastores, 13 Auchan City megastores, two Auchan Garden stores and two Raduga (Rainbow) stores as of June 2010.